Family of 5-year-old swept away in flood calling California governor a liar

SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY, Calif. (KMPH) — The family of a missing 5-year-old boy who was swept away by floodwaters in California in January is now saying Gov. Gavin Newsom is lying about continuing the search and making it "his top priority."

Kyle Doan's mother, Lindsy, was taking her son to school the morning of Jan. 9, 2023. She didn’t think the water flowing over the creek crossing on San Marcos Road was deeper than the previous day, so she drove through.

But the creek was much higher from the California winter storms. The water pushed her car off the bridge and into the creek, slamming it against a tree.

The car was filling up with water, she couldn't steer and hit a tree," said Brian Doan, Kyle's father. "She told Kyle just to forget everything and exit out of the car and he complied. He was calm. Of course, being 5, you don't really know what's going on and just trying to process it. He got out ... and then the current took him."

It has been four months since Kyle was seen and swept away inSan Luis Obispo County.

Hundreds of people initially came out to help search for the child, includinglaw enforcement agencies from neighboring counties, Search and Rescue Teams, drones, sonar equipment, air operations, and K-9 units.

But now, Brian said no one except the volunteer groups he's been able to gather has come out again, even though Newsom has said this search is "his top priority."

How is this the number one priority since mid-February?" Brian said. "We're into early May now. Give us an example of this number one priority.

On Monday, Newsom held a press conference in Los Angeles about pollution. One news reporter, Kris Adler from KFI iHeartMedia, asked: "Is your office currently doing anything right now to support the search and rescue of Kyle's body?" She also asked, "Have you personally been able to speak with Kyle's parents, Lyndsy and Brian Doan?"

He never really answered my questions," said Adler. "I had two questions, 'What is your office doing? 'and 'Have you spoken with the family?' And he answered neither of those questions."

Adler said she tried to ask who was the person or entity who called off the search but his office never answered.

Lindsy then wrote a strongly worded letter to the governor.

Your response broke our hearts," she wrote, in part. "Not only did you not answer the questions, but you were untruthful doing so."

We are not naïve or too young to be unaware of the old saying that 'All politicians lie,'" she continued. "Nor did we ever imagine that we would be directly insulted or heartbroken by a response given by the leader of our state. You claimed that you were 'here' in the very beginning of search efforts, a couple days after our tragedy occurred. While I understand that 'here' can be used loosely, we do not consider Santa Cruz to be remotely close to 'here.' It is not a neighboring county, let alone, the county that we’re physically located in."

With no more resources and no outreach from the governor's office, the desperation only grows for the Doan family.

So, here we are now in May and we're just hoping that the K-9 gets to come out here and maybe we'll get some closure," Brian said. "We'll see but I've got my other battles and I got real unaccountable politicians that don't want to give us a straight story. I'll go after them."