Autistic boy missing in Southern California woods

LAKE ARROWHEAD, Calif. (AP) — The search resumed today for an 8-year-old autistic boy who ran away from school and was missing on a Southern California mountaintop lashed by rain and lightning.

The overnight hunt for Joshua Robb east of Los Angeles was briefly suspended this morning because of the thunderstorm, San Bernardino County sheriff’s spokeswoman Cindy Bachman said. Rescue teams from five counties resumed the search in the San Bernardino National Forest shortly after 7:30 a.m.

“It was too dangerous to send them out,” she said.

Joshua was wearing a polo shirt, shorts and sandals and he had no food or water, Bachman said.

“His physical condition is of great concern,” she said.

“He certainly was not dressed for the weather.”

The boy, who has severe autism, was on the playground at Grandview Elementary School in the Twin Peaks area when he suddenly ran out of the gate Monday morning, Bachman said.

Staff members chased him but he was too quick and ran off into the forest that surrounds the school, she said.

Joshua has run away before but he never had been lost in the woods before, she said.

“If the boy’s running, he’s not necessarily concerned about staying on the trail,” Bachman said.

“He was out all night and with this weather on top of everything else. It’s very, very concerning,” she said.

“It’s hard to tell, I think, what he’s feeling,” she added. “He is disturbed by loud noises and loud voices. When you add darkness to that and then the storm.”