A 16-year-old girl has been missing from Aberdeen since she was last seen walking near S Clark Street five days ago, prompting Washington State Patrol to issue a statewide Missing Indigenous Person Alert on her behalf. Lola Hernandez-George stands 5 feet 3 inches tall, weighs about 130 pounds, and has a distinctive half-blonde, half-blue hairstyle split down the middle. She was last seen wearing gray sweatpants and a red shirt, traveling on foot in an unknown direction on August 6.
The alert was activated at the request of the Aberdeen Police Department, according to WSP Missing Person Alerts, which posted the bulletin along with Hernandez-George's case number, 26-A20257. Anyone who spots her is asked to call 911 immediately, while tips can also be directed to the Aberdeen Police Department's non-emergency line at 360-533-8765. Washington State Patrol notes it only activates these alerts at the request of local law enforcement, and that doing so requires the missing person to be identified as Indigenous, under active investigation, and accompanied by enough descriptive detail to aid a public search.
How Washington's Alert System Works
Once WSP activates a Missing Indigenous Person Alert, the details get pushed out through Wireless Emergency Alerts to mobile phones, highway electronic signs when vehicle information is available, state social media accounts, and email broadcasts to law enforcement networks statewide. Washington was the first state in the nation to build a dedicated alert system for missing Indigenous people, launching the program on July 1, 2022 after the state legislature passed House Bill 1725, which Governor Jay Inslee signed into law that March.
State law also sets a clock on how fast police must act. Under RCW 13.60.020, local agencies are required to file an official missing person report and enter the person's biographical details into the state's computerized network within six hours of being notified about a missing child or endangered individual. Washington State Patrol guidelines also stress there is no mandatory waiting period before a family can report someone missing, and law enforcement encourages calling 911 right away when a minor or vulnerable person disappears.
A System Built to Address a Documented Crisis
The alert framework exists because of stark disparities in how often Indigenous people go missing in Washington. The state ranks second nationally for total missing and murdered Indigenous women cases, and Indigenous women there are four times more likely to go missing than white women, according to research from the Urban Indian Health Institute. A 2025 report from the Washington State Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People Task Force found that the alert system helped recover more than 80 percent of the over 150 Indigenous individuals reported missing between July 2022 and early 2025, evidence the state points to as proof the program is working.
Washington State Patrol also runs a Missing and Unidentified Persons Unit alongside a Tribal Liaison Program established in 2019, placing dedicated liaisons in both Western and Eastern Washington to bridge gaps between tribal communities and non-tribal law enforcement during these investigations. It remains unclear whether tribal liaisons have been engaged specifically in the search for Hernandez-George.
Second Grays Harbor County Alert in Days
Hernandez-George's case marks the second Missing Indigenous Person Alert issued in Grays Harbor County within a matter of days. Just days earlier, Hoodline reported that a statewide alert went out for 28-year-old Chen-Wa August, who vanished near Westport in the same county. Grays Harbor County also carries a longer history of unresolved Indigenous disappearances, including the FBI Seattle office's renewed public appeals in late 2023 for information on two Quinault Nation cousins who went missing from Taholah in August 1979.
Investigators have not said whether foul play is suspected in Hernandez-George's disappearance, and it remains unknown whether any tips have come in regarding her whereabouts since she was last seen on foot. Anyone with information is urged to call 911 or contact the Aberdeen Police Department at the non-emergency number listed above.
