6/11/08 DISC: IA/NE/KS

[Mike McDonald]

I found this quote from one of the scouts at the Little Sioux camp interesting:
http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2798&u_sid=10356198

Brad Sundsboe, 17, student at Papillion-LaVista High School, and was a Scout leader at the camp.
"Yeah, it was obvious this was going to be a bad storm, the wind was unbelievable and we could see rotation," as they were running for shelter.

His use of "rotation" makes me think he's had some spotter training at the least. I wouldn't expect a description like that from the average person, let alone a 17 year old herding scouts towards a shelter as the storm was bearing down on them.

Brad also says in the article that the scout leaders were told to expect tornadic storms and were planning to show movies in the shelters.

The whole thing is a bummer. The deaths and the physical and mental trauma experienced by the scouts.

I did Order of the Arrow service projects at Little Sioux way back when the ranch was new.

Mike

 

[Van DeWald]

The Little Sioux Boy Scout Ranch tornado that caused 4 fatalities has been confirmed as a strong EF2 and possibly low-end EF3. Damage survey is still ongoing.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/crnews/display_story.php?wfo=oax&storyid=15319&source=0

Van

 

[rdale]

So it was not warned, or the NWR transmitter was out?

 

[Michael O'Keeffe]

Here is a link to the NWS TOP page of last nights tornadoes. Chapman looks to be in pretty bad shape based on the pictures. Though there were fatalities I am pleased not more people were killed what are the chances a storm would bring tornadoes through four towns including some of which were quite large.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/crnews/display_story.php?wfo=top&storyid=15324&source=0

As for what happened at Little Sioux Boy Scout Ranch nothing makes me more frustrated. I guarantee they had no or little planning for severe weather. I mean you live in Tornado Alley and its June you should know what to do and explain to the kids and staff "hey in the event of a tornado here's what we do..." It should be make standard issue in the US and especially Tornado Alley. This also brings me to a point of the video from Six Flags. They had no plan of action. They should make it standard to inform the guests and staff what do you do in a situation like that. Another example is the Georgia Dome tornado. Somebody should've been watching the weather, luckily the tornado didn't do much, but it could have. You must prepare for the worst. At schools around the Midwest it is standard to have a tornado plan. Why can't places that hold large groups of people have one too. Ah well I guess it has always been like this and nobody seems to listen, I feel almost helpless watching and listening to people act like it can't happen to them.

Ok I'm done ranting.

 

[J West]

So it was not warned, or the NWR transmitter was out?

Better question: Was there even a weather radio at that camp?

 

[Van DeWald]

Rob, the warning for the Little Sioux scout ranch was issued at 624 pm, and it hit the camp around 635 pm. I don't know of the specifics of how they receive the warnings, but there was ample warning, but we can't control how or when they receive it.

Michael, as far as the boys at the ranch, they knew what to do and where to go. The camp did have a tornado drill on Monday of this week, so the boys knew where to go. The problem, there were no underground shelters at the camp, just slab cabins that they sought shelter in. Also, it sounds like the stone chimney collapsed onto the boys. We don't know if that was the cause of the fatalities or not.

Van

 

[Van DeWald]

J West,

The Iowa governor just confirmed that the scout camp DID have a weather radio.

Van

 

[Mike Peregrine]

Sounds like they did just what they were trained to do during the drill to me. They sounded the siren and everyone took cover. That drill on Monday probably saved dozens of lives, looking at the extent of damage. Good job to the scouts who acted quickly and immediately started locating their peers. They are awesome.

Camps, trailer parks, and events of any kind need storm shelters.

 

[Mark Manchester]

I was watching KETV Channel 7 out of Omaha when I got home last night and they were interviewing some people regarding the Little Sioux storm.

One person indicated that there was one 14 year old scout who was "partnered" for lack of a better term, with another scout when they were taking cover. The younger scout was terribly upset and scared as you can imagine, so when the storm came this 14 year old boy, disregarding his own personal safety, grabbed this other camper, put him on the ground and laid on top of him to protect him. The older boy received some minor injuries as a result, but just the fact that he would even think of doing that at a time like that goes to show how well some of these kids are trained.

I sure hope somehow that boy gets recognized in some way for his actions.

 

[Dennis Sherrod]

Sounds like they did just what they were trained to do during the drill to me. They sounded the siren and everyone took cover. That drill on Monday probably saved dozens of lives, looking at the extent of damage. Good job to the scouts who acted quickly and immediately started locating their peers. They are awesome.

Camps, trailer parks, and events of any kind need storm shelters.

Mik,
What you are saying is apparently true. They had sirens nearby and they were warned with a 11-12 minute window. According to the news stations last night here in Omaha and the spokeman, this was true. The boys went to the houses they had and one was destroyed that was holding approximately 60 people.
I was listening to some of the boys being interviewed this morning and they were amazing. While visibly shaken, they still each said it was good it was a boy scout camp, as they has all had training and were prepared. The older boys were covering the younger ones who were scared with their own bodies to help protect them. Amazing group of young men.

 

[joel ewing]

I followed that entire day's events on my home 'puter...constantly going from radar to satellite to live stream, focusing entirely on eastern Nebraska and extreme western Iowa.
Initially that line became tornadic in far northwest Iowa, into southern Minnesota. Then after some time...eastern Nebraska exploded. It seemed that there were so many areas of possible tornadoes, it was hard to keep track of. The NWS Omaha had their hands full. Then...lightning hit the Omaha NWS, and took out their radar capability for most of the event. As far as ground truth...there were spotters and chasers out for sure, but these were all heavy precip storms...and visibility was virtually nil near the tornadic circulations. Every so often, chasers or spotters would get glimpses of tornadoes deeply rain wrapped. From what I heard once I tapped into an Omaha television station's live report (which went on for hours non stop)...the whole affair was a visibility nightmare.
My guess is that Nebraska had many more tornadoes than reported (only 7 prelim)...with many of them on the ground for a long period of time.
Looking at things in this morning's perspective...2 things really stand out. It's a miracle that more people weren't killed in that area last night...and....I'm stunned that once an NWS site's radar goes down to lightning, that there isn't some kind of backup system. Once Omaha's radar went down..they had to rely on radar from Des Moines, I think it was. This was virtually worthless.

 

[Dennis Sherrod]

Looking at things in this morning's perspective...2 things really stand out. It's a miracle that more people weren't killed in that area last night...and....I'm stunned that once an NWS site's radar goes down to lightning, that there isn't some kind of backup system. Once Omaha's radar went down..they had to rely on radar from Des Moines, I think it was. This was virtually worthless.

It is my understanding that the site took a lightning strike. It was repaired fairly quickly in my opinion. I shifted to both Hastings and Des Moines sites and found they were very helpful and it was not worthless. I was still able to adequately use these sites while in the area to do what was needed.

 

[J West]

J West,

The Iowa governor just confirmed that the scout camp DID have a weather radio.

Van

Fantastic. No doubt this and the overall early warning helped save lives since it appears the camp was able to act quickly prior to the storm arriving.

 

[Van DeWald]

Joel,

That is our backup system, i.e. looking at surrounding radar data. In this case, it was the Des Moines and Hastings 88Ds that we were using. Also, once we took the lightning hit, we were in near constant phone communication with both offices to get input as well. When a radar failure like this happens, warning forecasters will tend to be a little more liberal with the warnings due to the sampling issues from distance from the radar, etc. But, as Dennis mentioned, the radar was back up in 1 hour and 10 minutes! This was almost in record time, considering that we had to call our systems analyst in to get this back up. Our NOAA Weather Radio console also took a hit, as well as a couple of the AWIPS workstations (we have 6 of those, and 4 were not affected). The lightning strike hit one of our HF beam antennas about 100 feet due south of the office, then sent a feeder bolt directly to the 88d radome. Sure could have been a lot worse, but we did get everything back up and running in 1 hour 10 minutes, and never once dropped the ball on updating statements or issuing new warnings.

Van

 

[Chad Cowan]

From: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/06/12/severe.weather/index.html

The storm that struck Kansas State University's campus destroyed a wind erosion lab, damaged several engineering and science buildings and tore the roof off a fraternity house at the school in Manhattan, said Cheryl May, the university's director of media relations.

"Our campus is kind of a mess," she said.

The storm destroyed up to 50 homes and damaged hundreds in Manhattan, said Lt. Kurt Moldrup of the Riley County Police Department.

As I mentioned in the NOW thread last night, my friends took a direct hit to their house last night. The mark on the radar grab under the tornado is their house and the mark to the northeast of that is the Kansas State campus. Luckily I was able to get a hold of them before it hit and told them to get in their basement. This is what they said happened- "...the power went out and it got really loud. The basement door (to outside) which was bolted shut shot open and ripped the hinge off." The house is very well built and only sustained minor cosmetic damage (broken windows, shrapnel chipped exterior paint) but all of the trees in the yard were lost.

The pictures below the radar grab were taken on the western edge of campus. The fraternity house in left is the one referred to in the CNN article with its roof missing.