Update: A grand jury has indicted the boat captain, reports the AP: https://apnews.com/97a50539272942bd9306a5937dc81cfb
I’m saddened and angered by an apparently weather-related tragedy in Branson, Missouri yesterday. News reports indicate that at least 11 people died when an amphibious, commercial tour boat capsized on Table Rock Lake during a warned severe thunderstorm.
Reports indicate that the incident occurred at around 7 p.m. CDT, well after the National Weather Service (NWS) office in Springfield, Missouri placed the area (shaded in yellow on the map above) under a severe thunderstorm warning at 6:32 p.m. The initial warning was in effect until 7:30 p.m., well after the incident occurred. The warning indicated that 60 mph wind gusts were possible as well as “damage to roofs, siding, and trees.”
This warning should not have surprised anyone, because the NWS Storm Prediction Center issued a severe thunderstorm watch for the area at 11:20 a.m. that was in effect until 9 p.m.
As I write this, I find no answers in news media reports to the following critical questions:
- Did the amphibious tour boat enter the water before or after the NWS issued the severe thunderstorm warning?
- Were operators of the tour boat aware of the severe thunderstorm warning before the boat capsized?
- If the boat was already in the water when the NWS issued the warning, did it immediately head for shore at that time?
- Does Ripley Entertainment, the company that owns the tour boat, have policies regarding how its operators become aware of and react to weather watches and warnings?
I hope investigators uncover and report answers to these questions. In the interim, this tragedy unfortunately reminds me of fatal incidents elsewhere in the country in which organizations apparently ignored severe thunderstorm warnings:
- The 2011 collapse of an outdoor stage structure at the Indiana State Fair, which killed seven people.
- The 2015 collapse of a circus tent in New Hampshire, which killed two people.
One would hope that incidents like those would teach organizations everywhere to enact and enforce severe weather policies and procedures, and to take severe thunderstorm warnings seriously. I fear that yesterday’s tragedy could be a sign that some organizations still haven’t learned this lesson.