The U.S. Coast Guard suspended its search for seven people after a commercial fishing vessel, the Lily Jean, sank off the Massachusetts coast in rough and frigid Atlantic Ocean conditions, officials said Saturday. The Coast Guard began a search and rescue effort early Friday after receiving an alert from the 72-foot vessel while it was about 25 miles (40 kilometers) off Cape Ann. Searchers later found evidence near where the alert was sent, but the Coast Guard said all reasonable efforts for the missing crew members had been exhausted by Saturday.

Coast Guard officials said the search was launched after the Lily Jean transmitted an emergency alert. The Coast Guard said searchers found a debris field near the location of the alert, along with a body in the water and an empty life raft. Officials also said there was no mayday call from the Lily Jean as it navigated the frigid Atlantic Ocean on its way home to Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Crews covered about 1,000 square miles (2,589 square kilometers) during the 24-hour search, using aircraft, cutters and small boats, according to the Coast Guard. After consultations between search-and-rescue coordinators and on-scene commanders, the Coast Guard announced Saturday that it had determined further search efforts would not be productive.

Officials said the Coast Guard was notified by the vessel’s beacon, which alerts when the craft hits the water. The Coast Guard said the investigation into the cause of the sinking was ongoing and that officials did not immediately release the names of the people lost.

At an emotional news conference, Republican state Sen. Bruce Tarr said the community would recover. “We are deep in sorrow, but we are a strong community, and we will rise, we will rise to this occasion,” Tarr said.

Coast Guard Sector Boston commander Jamie Frederick said conditions complicated the search, pointing to frigid temperatures and stormy weather. Frederick said nighttime survivor-finding was especially difficult with a nor’easter approaching the East Coast, and that searchers contended with 7- to 10-foot seas and freezing ocean spray. He said there was “no single clue” yet to determine what happened to the Lily Jean, and he described the debris as looking like items that would be loose on a fishing deck.

Gloucester officials and residents described the tragedy as another blow to a tightly knit fishing community. Vito Giacalone, head of the Gloucester Fishing Community Preservation Fund, said residents were grieving and in shock after losing multiple lives at once. “Everybody’s just heartbroken,” Giacalone told The Associated Press in an interview Saturday, adding, “To have that many lives lost all at once, we haven’t seen that in a long time.”

Mayor Paul Lundberg said the names of those on the Lily Jean would be added to a city memorial honoring fishermen lost at sea. The Lily Jean, its captain and its crew had been featured in a 2012 episode of the History Channel show “Nor’Easter Men,” according to the AP report, with captain Gus Sanfilippo described as a fifth-generation commercial fisherman who fished out of Gloucester.

NOAA Fisheries said a fishery observer was on board the vessel, and that observer deployments would be suspended until after midnight Wednesday due to the sinking and the weather in the Northeast. Commercial fishing is often cited as one of the most dangerous jobs, and Everett Sawyer, a childhood friend of Sanfilippo, said he has known 25 people who were lost at sea, adding that cold winter conditions can complicate operations even for experienced sailors. “Things happen very quickly when you’re out on the ocean,” Sawyer said.

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