Coast Guard: Florida teens missing at sea could survive for 4 or 5 more days

Austin Stephanos and Perry Cohen.

A Coast Guard official says that as long as current water conditions remain the same, two teenage boys lost at sea off the Florida coast could likely survive for four or five days.

Austin Stephanos and Perry Cohen, both 14, were last seen Friday at 1:30 p.m. buying gas at a marina in Jupiter, Florida. On Sunday, their boat was found capsized off the coast of Ponce de Leon Inlet, but there was no sign of Stephanos or Cohen. Coast Guard Capt. Mark Fedor said that while the water in the area is relatively warm, it's still a dangerous environment. Fedor also told ABC News that he's hopeful the boys are holding onto either a lifejacket or a cooler that was believed to be onboard the boat.

Family members told the Coast Guard that the teens mentioned going toward the Bahamas. Rescuers are focusing on the area north of where the boat was found, and by midnight Monday, crews will have searched more than 27,000 square miles, an area roughly the size of West Virginia.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.