A helicopter from the San Jose Police Department hovered above the southern border of Portola Valley on the evening of April 2 as a team of law enforcement officers from Santa Clara and San Mateo counties looked for a missing person who had been reported absent from his Los Altos Hills home at around 4:30 p.m. that day.

Residents of the area near Alpine Road and Indian Crossing were asked to shelter in place at about 7:30 p.m., the same time that Los Altos police found the man in Los Altos, according to Sgt. Andrea Urena of the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office.

The missing man, described as 49, Asian and wearing a blue parka with a hood, had reportedly been seen near Corte Madera school, Sgt. Urena said. The man was taken to a hospital for medical evaluation, she said.

The advisory in Portola Valley was lifted at about 8:05 p.m. Asked to explain the odd timing, San Mateo County Sheriff's Office Deputy Rebecca Rosenblatt replied in an email. The shelter-in-place order was issued at about 7:29 p.m. "in what can be best described as an over abundance of caution," she said. "When the situation was reassessed a short time later, it was determined that a shelter in place order was in fact not necessary and the order was lifted at approximately 8:05 p.m."

Santa Clara County deputies had asked for assistance from San Mateo County deputies. The San Mateo County Sheriff's Office had 10 deputies involved, including those patrolling Portola Valley and Woodside, the street-crime unit, and the coastal unit, Deputy Rebecca Rosenblatt told the Almanac. Deputies arrived on the scene at 6:15 p.m. and left by 8:30, she said.