MO - Duck boat carrying 31 tourists capsizes, killing 17, near Branson, July 2018

I believe the biggest factor for this Duck Boat is the canopy top. The canopy can and will fill with high strength wind and air to be a sail. Living here in MO can make one a little immune to weather casts. As SAM has said the weather can be calm one minute and turn SO fast. When being on the water it can take time to get back to port. But I wonder with it being amphibious could it not find a place to land without the dock? Maybe I'm just being stupid.

JMO

Agree about the canopy complicating matters. It also makes it much more difficult to exit while sinking. It turns the "boat" into a "bus" and I imagine it's easy to get trapped under the roof/canopy during capsizing and sinking. If memory serves me, the military (original) version of this craft didn't usually come with a roof.
 
ABC News is reporting that the National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm warning with high winds for that area about half an hour before the boat was hit. Incredible negligence to take those boats on the water. A warning means the storm had formed and was on its way.

People said it was sunny and the storm popped up out of nowhere, but clearly the National Weather Service was all over it in plenty of time. Weather forecasting is too good these days for these operators to not be aware of imminent weather threats. My cell phone goes off automatically with watches and warnings because I want to be aware of severe threats since we live in the midwest. Any company with outdoor operations is obligated to keep on top of the weather!


How the Missouri duck boat capsize unfolded amid weather warnings
 
Last edited:
We ended with Tornados Warnings here in Springfield after I took cover in a truck stop. I never once received an alert. and I have my phone set too. I ahve received them in the past. No alert this time. Not sure about the immediate Branson area. How long are the boats on the water? How long is a tour? If there was approaching storms, they may not have had time to reach the land if they were further out. I am just expressing my opinion on how sudden the storms hit here in Springfield. I was checking my phone when I saw the winds pick up and again, it was mentioning storms that were 2 hours away and to the East of Springfield.
 
We ended with Tornados Warnings here in Springfield after I took cover in a truck stop. I never once received an alert. and I have my phone set too. I ahve received them in the past. No alert this time. Not sure about the immediate Branson area. How long are the boats on the water? How long is a tour? If there was approaching storms, they may not have had time to reach the land if they were further out. I am just expressing my opinion on how sudden the storms hit here in Springfield. I was checking my phone when I saw the winds pick up and again, it was mentioning storms that were 2 hours away and to the East of Springfield.
IIRC the ride was about an hour, but only half or less of that time was on the water. I suppose it's plausible that the boat was already in the lake prior to the warning being issued/they were notified.
 
We ended with Tornados Warnings here in Springfield after I took cover in a truck stop. I never once received an alert. and I have my phone set too. I ahve received them in the past. No alert this time. Not sure about the immediate Branson area. How long are the boats on the water? How long is a tour? If there was approaching storms, they may not have had time to reach the land if they were further out. I am just expressing my opinion on how sudden the storms hit here in Springfield. I was checking my phone when I saw the winds pick up and again, it was mentioning storms that were 2 hours away and to the East of Springfield.

Maybe your phone did not go off, and I have had that happen too, but the National Weather Service issued the severe thunderstorm warning at 6:32 p.m. See attached screen shot. It would have been on the NOAA web site, shown on any decent radar, etc. The National Weather service has always espoused having several avenues for receiving weather info, and this company should have been doing that.

Locals are saying the threat of severe weather was present all day, and a severe thunderstorm watch was issued that morning, several hours in advance. That alone should have had company operators following the weather closely. Locals also said the storm was clearly visible on radar well before it hit Table Rock Lake. There is really no excuse for those boats being on the lake, because even if they had been on the lake when the warning was issued, they had plenty of time to exit the lake before the winds hit after 7.

The owner of the company is on record as saying the boats should not have been out there.
 

Attachments

  • DCA90AA7-3A6D-4028-A3EE-021E2F92C0E0.jpeg
    DCA90AA7-3A6D-4028-A3EE-021E2F92C0E0.jpeg
    195.1 KB · Views: 13
Last edited:
I don't know which article it is in but a guy who owns a boat tow service was there and his boats were used right after this happened. He said there were two Ride The Duck boats out on the water. One made it back and was safe but the second made it back but was behind the first one and the wind was so high that it pushed the second back out into the lake. The waves became too high and the boat succumbed. I have tried to find the link for his interview but haven't thus far, so I will leave this as speculation until I do.

JSO
 
I live in Springfield and the storm approached FAST. The owner of the Ripleys Believe it or Not has been qouted as saying the boats should not have been on the water. His company owns the Ride the Ducks company. I know all of the news channels are showing these videos in the area and the video is shocking,but that storm came quick. I was out in a pick up truck on I 44 and the clouds just went black and wind picked up. Semis were pulling over. We pulled over and took shelter at a truck stop Bois D'Arc area. Springfield had electricity out and one person reported that winds were 70mph.

The warnings were long before they would've gone put on the water:

"WSB-Atlanta Meteorologist Brian Monahan tweeted,

This severe weather threat was forecast for DAYS.

Monahan is correct. I went back to find the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center convective outlooks issued on July 18th, a day or so before the event. The discussion said,

The potential for one or more early day thunderstorm clusters complicates the forecast scenario on Thursday. Any such cluster may present a localized severe wind risk early in the day, especially across portions of MO … Further south down the Mississippi Valley, a more conditional severe risk will be present. Any early day thunderstorm cluster that survives may rejuvenate across portions of southern MO/northern AR during the afternoon. Later-day storms that initiate further north may also merge into a cluster that moves southeastward into this region. Some damaging wind risk would be possible in either scenario, with some marginal hail risk associated with any more discrete convection that may develop."

The boat operators knew of the forecast days before.

Frankly, I think they typically ignore such warnings if it looks clear enough because a storm this bad is probably rare and they don't want to lose money by being cautious when most of the time nothing bad happens.

But there should be a moral obligation to never place profit over lives.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.fo...ecause-storm-did-not-come-out-of-nowhere/amp/

I’m curious.......aren’t life jackets mandatory on a vessel like this. If not, why not ?

I think life jackets might have actually made it harder for some people to survive in that situation.

It looks like the sides were enclosed with some sort of clear, vinyl panels due to the weather. As the boat capsized, which took seconds and which they were unlikely to truly believe would happen, the passengers would all have been flipped sideways into each other, as belongings and anything else not secured whipped around them, and as water immediately rushed in, submerging them in seconds.

They would've been mostly trapped in an upside down vessel with the weight of thousands of pounds of water pressing the boat and them downward, with bodies pinned to the ceiling of the vessel, as it sank.

Those wearing a life jackets would be more securely pinned to the upside down ceiling by the competing forces of the floatation device's bouancy and the pressure of the water.

Life jackets would also make it harder to swim sideways away from the ceiling and put a window, if they could undo a panel.

Imagine trying to do all of this in fast, heavy, rushing water, as people and objects fling around, while trying to gather your kids.

I imagine many of those who escaped weren't wearing life jackets and were somehow able to get out a window panel as the boat was capsizing, before it went under.

This is horrific.
 
Clearly operator error, I don't care how fast storms come up. Toll 17 not 8.

And as the article I linked describes, this isn't 1888. We have Doppler radar. Storms were forecast a day before. A line of T-storms was forecast.

I just think they probably ignore the a lot because storms are frequent and f they kept boats off the water every time there was a storm forecast, they'd lose a ton of money.

But that would be much better than being responsible for lost lives.

Ugh. Those poor babies.
 
IIRC the ride was about an hour, but only half or less of that time was on the water. I suppose it's plausible that the boat was already in the lake prior to the warning being issued/they were notified.

But they have a responsibility to watch the forecast and know long before they go out. They don't need a severe weather warning. Just read the forecast which stated a line of t-cells was coming.

Boats that unwieldy and unseaworthy should never be out on water when any storm of any kind is forecast- severe or not, at least in my uneducated opinion on water craft!
 
And as the article I linked describes, this isn't 1888. We have Doppler radar. Storms were forecast a day before. A line of T-storms was forecast.

I just think they probably ignore the a lot because storms are frequent and f they kept boats off the water every time there was a storm forecast, they'd lose a ton of money.

But that would be much better than being responsible for lost lives.

Ugh. Those poor babies.

There was a forecast for a major windstorm in the Seattle area in the fall of 2016. Many, including a meteorology professor at UW, were discussing this in near-apocalyptic terms. It ended up being mild at best. I'm linking to an article about it: The storm that wasn’t: Why Western Washington windstorm predictions went wrong

I bring it up because it only takes a few of these forecasts that don't end up coming true for people to start rolling their eyes. My question isn't whether the NWS put out warnings about this thunderstorm, but whether there were similar warnings recently that didn't pan out.
 
IMO the way these Duck Boats are laid out, it tends to cause people to feel very safe. Much like driving a bus on water. Much like being on a Ferry in New York. You feel very casual about the whole thing while taking in the views. I'm quite sure the pilot of this vessel had absolutely NO experience driving that type of boat in very choppy water with 5-6 foot waves. Just like driving on ice the first time, not steering into the skid.

JMO

www.ky3.com/content/news/Mourners-plan-3-candlelight-vigils-Friday-night-for-victims-of-Ride-the-Ducks-tragedy-488743281.html
 
There was a forecast for a major windstorm in the Seattle area in the fall of 2016. Many, including a meteorology professor at UW, were discussing this in near-apocalyptic terms. It ended up being mild at best. I'm linking to an article about it: The storm that wasn’t: Why Western Washington windstorm predictions went wrong

I bring it up because it only takes a few of these forecasts that don't end up coming true for people to start rolling their eyes. My question isn't whether the NWS put out warnings about this thunderstorm, but whether there were similar warnings recently that didn't pan out.

No doubt that was the case with these boat operators. It happens a lot- forecasts that don't pan out. So they stand to lose a lot of dough if they don't go out when a storm is forecast.

The problem is those things are like buses. We can see how poorly they navigated the waves. Seems very risk to ever have those vessels on the water if there's even a hint of storm.

Can they make enough money if they have a policy of never going out when there's a storm forecast? I don't know.

They could still drive them on land and maybe could have an alternative when they can't go on water.

Like a different activity, a partial refund and/or a different type of vessel available, which of course would costs as well.
 

Members online

Online statistics

Members online
101
Guests online
2,403
Total visitors
2,504

Forum statistics

Threads
590,003
Messages
17,928,882
Members
228,037
Latest member
shmoozie
Back
Top