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I've been thinking about those four kids who died after a tornado hit a Boy Scount camp in Iowa almost a month ago. I've been trying to figure out if I will ever be able to let my daughter go to overnight camp without remembering this summer.
I've been thinking about those boys' parents. When I try to fathom what they must be going through, my throat starts to close off. Even though I grew up about an hour away from the campsite, I don't think I know any of the parents. It doesn't matter. I am a parent, and I know the fear I feel when the weather turns bad and my daughter isn't in the same room with me. It's the kind of fear that makes you think of doing crazy things, like driving into danger to try to get to your child. When I remember this storm, I think of the parents, what they must have gone through waiting for the news. What the parents of these four boys must have gone through receiving the news. To the parents of the boys listed below, I am so sorry for your loss.
June 11, 2008. From Omaha station WOWT:
Three Omaha teens and an Eagle Grove, Iowa teen have been identified as the Scouts who lost their lives when a tornado hit the Little Sioux Scout Ranch Wednesday. They are identified as Josh Fennen, 13, Sam Thomsen, 13 and Ben Petrzilka, 14, all of Omaha and Aaron Eilerts, 14, of Eagle Grove.
In a scenario straight out of every family's Little Book of Nightmares, parents were asked to stay away while rescuers worked to find all the scouts and rangers. Parents gathered in a nearby church.
Moons in Leo claims the Boy Scouts of America are at fault for not leaving when there was a threat of severe weather:
I dare say it would have been prudent for the Scouts to have vacated the camp and gone somewhere safe when they heard severe weather was in the offing, but no. They decided to stay out in the middle of nowhere and see how good their triage training was after a stone chimney in their little cabin collapsed on their heads.
Not everyone feels that way, though. From Principled Discovery:
The next morning, I wanted to throw things at a radio host as he drew suspicion on the camp leaders, accusing them of not protecting the children. As if there is anything you can do when a tornado strikes a campground. All of the boys killed were in one of the shelters near a collapsed chimney. They had taken the only cover available and sometimes there is just nothing you can do.
Could this tragedy have been avoided? Storm Chasers from the Discovery Channel said the tornado was very hard to see due to weather conditions at the time.
Sadly, 4 people lost their lives and 40 were injured yesterday as a rain-wrapped tornado struck a Boy Scout camp near the Hamilton/Monona county line in western Iowa, about 40-50 miles north of Omaha. Since this tornado was concealed by rain, it was likely very difficult to see the funnel approaching, which makes these tornadoes even more dangerous.
Maybe they should've shut down the day before. Probably, actually. But having grown up in Iowa and living in Kansas City, I know that if you cancelled plans every time the weatherman said it's going to be severe weather, you'd never go anywhere from May through October. That's why I'm not surprised the camp wasn't closed down due to a tornado watch in the area. It's probably hard to understand if you didn't grow up with tornados, but they are so hit-and-miss, and most of the watches and even some warnings never result in any funnels. I'm sure there are quite a few Boy Scout administrators and rangers sitting in their offices with their heads in their hands right now, berating themselves for not cancelling that camp. The Boys Scouts of America is not a harbinger of evil. I think they made a mistake, but it was an honest mistake, and one I could easily make every time I decide whether or not to go get my daughter from daycare early because there's a tornado watch.
Some commenters on news stories have blamed the parents of these kids for sending them
