4A | FROM PAGE ONE
TRAGEDY: Marina operator says he thinks ‘tragedy could have been averted’
FROM 1A
The duck boat the Faram
family rode took them
and their fellow passen-
gers down the Branson
strip, where passengers
could see several tourist
destinations out the win-
dow. With skies clear and
sun overhead, the driver
eventually pointed the boat
down a launch ramp and
punched the gas pedal. Not
unlike a real-world duck,
the vehicle seamlessly tran-
sitioned from flat ground to
floating.
After splashing through
Table Rock Lake without
incident, the boat returned
safely to its starting point
at the end of the night. The
ride was of particular de-
light to Faram’s two daugh-
ters, ages 4 and 6.
“We never felt scared. ...
When we were on the wa-
ter, we never
thought any-
thing of it,”
said Faram,
who was
visting from
ON OUR Cleburne,
WEBSITE Texas. But not a
FOR week later,
MORE a group of 31
on this people set off
story, on a Ride the
check Ducks tour
out at joplin that — but for
globe.com. a host of vari-
ables — could
have ended the same way
the Farams’ did.
A thunderstorm that
would later be classified as
a derecho barreled toward
Table Rock Lake. According
to NTSB reports released
on Friday gathered from
the video recorder camera
system, the duck boat began
the tour at about 6:33 and
entered the lake at 6:55 p.m.
on July 19. At 7:05 p.m.,
water began splashing the
passenger compartment.
Minutes later, the boat —
and its passengers — were
underwater.
Faram specified that her
tour took to the land first,
then entered the water.
A survivor of last week’s
deadly sinking has said in
media interviews since the
incident that the decision
was made by the business
to head to the water first in
hopes of beating the storm.
The duck boat, strong
winds and high waves in-
stead met on the lake all
at once. The bodies of 17 of
the people on board were
found in the water over
the next 15 hours. Weath-
er alerts had gone out as
early as 11:30 a.m. that day.
Counties northwest of the
Branson area were issued
thunderstorm warnings
at 5:45 p.m. — more than
an hour before the boat
sank. The Branson area
was placed under a severe
thunderstorm warning
shortly after 6:30 p.m. The
boat sank about 7:10 p.m.,
authorities have said.
The tragedy has sparked
a debate over the appropri-
ateness of such amphib-
ious vehicles — and the
decisions that were made
to take one on the water
despite the approaching
storm that eventually sank
the boat, trapping more
than a dozen people on a
sinking ship. While the
Stone County sheriff, Mis-
souri highway and water
patrols, and other agencies
responded first, the investi-
gation — which could take
a year or more — is now
being conducted by the
National Transportation
Safety Board.
Safety recommendations
the NTSB made nearly
two decades ago after a
fatal duck boat sinking in
Arkansas appear to reflect
safety risks that manifest-
ed on Table Rock. Yet none
of those recommendations
were ever carried out.
Jim Pattison, president
of the company that owns
Ride the Ducks, said in a
national television inter-
view after the accident that
the boat “shouldn’t have
been in the water.” Ride the
Ducks has been unreach-
able since the accident,
having temporarily shut-
tered the business, which it
has said is out of respect for
the victims and to cooper-
ate with the ongoing inves-
tigation. Ride the Ducks’
website has also been
disabled, save for a landing
page expressing sympathy
over the fatal voyage.
TABLE ROCK TRAGEDY
The Ride the Ducks boat
took a load of 29 passengers
and two crew members
THE JOPLIN GLOBE | SUNDAY, JULY 29, 2018
All about derechos
THE THUNDERSTORM that hit the
Branson area on July 19 was
later classified by the National
Weather Service as a derecho.
Q. What is a derecho?
A. A derecho is a widespread,
long-lived wind storm associat-
ed with a band of rapidly moving
showers or thunderstorms.
Although a derecho can produce
destruction similar to that of a
tornado, the damage typically
occurs in one direction along
a relatively straight swath. As
a result, the term “straight-line
wind damage” sometimes
is used to describe derecho
damage.
Q. How strong are derecho winds?
A. By definition, a derecho must
include wind gusts of at least
58 mph or greater along most of
its length. While derecho winds
typically are less than 100 mph,
gusts as high as 130 mph have
been recorded.
Q. What are the dimensions of a
derecho?
A. A derecho wind damage swath
must extend more than 240
miles. This criterion is used to
eliminate more common, short-
er-lived and generally less-orga-
nized wind-producing convective
systems.
Q. Who is most at risk from a
derecho?
A. Those outdoors are most at risk
in a derecho. Campers or hikers
in forested areas are vulnerable
to being injured or killed by
falling trees, and people at sea
risk injury or drowning from
storm winds and waves that
can overturn boats. Occupants
of cars and trucks are vulnerable
to falling trees and utility poles.
Vehicles such as semi-trailer
trucks, buses and sport utility
vehicles may be blown over. At
outside events such as fairs and
festivals, people may be killed or
onto Table Rock, where
heavy winds and high
waves quickly overcame
the vehicle. The duck boat
swamped and eventually
sank around 7:10 p.m., with
bystanders saying the ves-
sel went down in no more
than 10 minutes.
Nine members of the
same Indiana family died
in the sinking: Glenn
Coleman, 40, and his three
children, 9-year-old Reece,
7-year-old Evan and 1-year-
old Arya; Angela Coleman,
45, and her 2-year-old son,
Maxwell; Horace Coleman,
70, and his wife, Belinda,
69; and Ervin Coleman, 76.
Others killed are Leslie
Dennison, 64, of Illinois;
Steve Smith, 53, and his
15-year-old son, Lance, of
Osceola, Arkansas; William
Bright, 65, and his wife,
Janice, 63, of Higginsville;
William Asher, 69, and
Rosemarie Hamann, 68, a
couple from the St. Louis
area; and Bob Williams, 73,
of Branson, one of two crew
members on board.
The remaining crew
member, Kenneth McKee,
51, survived. Survivors
who lost family members
to the accident are Tia
Coleman, 34, and her neph-
ew, 13-year-old Donovan
Hall, of the Indianapolis
area; 12-year-old Alicia
Dennison, of Illinois, and
14-year-old Loren Smith, of
Osceola, Arkansas.
Additional survivors are
all from the same family:
Shayne and Tiffany Collins,
both 42, Gillian Collins, 15,
Tayden Kimbley, 10, Tal-
yssa Mann, 19, and Ronita
McKinley, all of New Mexi-
co; and Tomlyn McDonald,
39, Chloe McDonald, 11, and
Cayden McDonald, 10, all of
Texas.
The response from Mis-
souri’s federal lawmak-
ers was swift. U.S. Sen.
Claire McCaskill, within a
week of the accident, was
working on legislation that
would require that the past
recommendations made by
the NTSB to increase the
safety of amphibious ve-
hicles be put into law. U.S.
Sen. Roy Blunt, meanwhile,
turned his attention to
pushing for two nominees
to the NTSB to be con-
firmed to the five-member
panel. Seventh District
Rep. Billy Long has said
that “it’s time to figure out
whether they need to stay a
part of tourism around the
United States.”
1999 WARNING
The potential dangers
of amphibious duck boats
were known to — and
well-documented by — fed-
eral agencies that oversee
U.S. waterways at least 19
years before the tragedy in
Branson occurred.
COURTESY | NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ASSOCIATION
injured by collapsing temporary
structures and flying debris.
Q. How do derechos link to other
weather patterns?
A. Some of the most intense
summer derechos occur on the
fringes of major heat waves.
The meteorological conditions
favorable for large-scale heat
waves often also are conducive
to derechos.
Q. Where and when are derechos
most frequent in the United
States?
A. Derechos in the U.S. are most
common in the late spring and
summer, with more than 75
percent occurring between
April and August. The U.S. is
one of the most derecho-prone
regions of the world. Derechos
most commonly occur along
two axes: from the upper
Mississippi Valley southeast
into the Ohio Valley, and from
the southern Plains northeast
into the mid-Mississippi Valley.
The region that sees the highest
frequency of derechos includes
extreme Southwest Missouri,
Northeast Oklahoma and North-
west Arkansas.
Q. Has Southwest Missouri expe-
rienced a derecho before?
A. Yes. A derecho that moved
through the region on May
8, 2009, carried at least one
On May 1, 1999, 13 people
died on Lake Hamilton,
near Hot Springs, Arkan-
sas, when a duck boat took
on water through a me-
chanical component that
was not watertight.
In the course of investi-
gating that lethal voyage,
the NTSB and U.S Coast
Guard prepared reports on
the incident, and the NTSB
made recommendations on
how to avoid a repeat oc-
currence. The Coast Guard
chose not to make any of
the guidelines mandatory,
leaving it up to business
owners and operators to
heed the precautions.
While no mechanical or
maintenance issues like
those that caused the sink-
ing of the Miss Majestic
in 1999 are known to have
contributed to last week’s
accident, the NTSB report
shows that some things
that may have added to the
tragedy on Table Rock were
highlighted nearly two de-
cades ago.
The report notes the
speed with which duck
boats — which are typi-
cally made out of metal,
as opposed to wood or
fiberglass — can sink once
swamped if additional
buoyancy is not installed.
That, combined with the
boats’ typical canopies,
can present a challenge
for passengers attempting
to escape in the case of an
emergency.
The canopies, which
serve to protect passengers
from excessive sun or rain,
can function “like a net”
when riders attempt to get
off a sinking duck boat, the
report says.
“The metal framework on
both sides of the passengers
and the continuous canopy
over their heads essentially
caged them, making escape
in the limited time avail-
able extremely difficult,”
the report said of the 1999
incident.
Of the 13 people who
died in that accident, three
were found still in their
seats and four were found
floating against the bottom
of the canopy, according
to the NTSB report. Two
survivors said they had
to swim downward to
escape the canopy before
swimming away from the
wreckage. All but one said
the canopy was an “impedi-
ment” to their escape.
“If you had the cover off,
everybody would have had
a chance,” one survivor
is quoted as saying in the
report. “With that cover
on, there’s too many people
(who) didn’t have a chance
because that thing sank so
quick.”
All duck boats that were
immediately visible to a
reporter on the parking
wind gust that was clocked at
93 mph. The storm, which left
damage from western Kansas
to eastern Kentucky, toppled
countless trees, power lines and
a 1,000-foot transmitting tower
belonging to KSNF-TV, knocking
the television station off the air
for weeks. The National Weath-
er Service later classified the
storm as a “super derecho.”
Q. Where did the term “derecho”
come from?
A. The word “derecho” was
coined in 1888 by Gustavus
Hinrichs, a professor of physics
at the University of Iowa, and is
derived from the Spanish word
“derecho,” which means “right,”
“direct” or “straight ahead.”
Hinrichs used the term in a
paper published by the Ameri-
can Meteorological Journal to
distinguish thunderstorm-in-
duced straight-line winds from
the damaging, rotary winds of
tornadoes. The word disap-
peared from use for nearly a
century until it was resurrected
by NOAA meteorologists Robert
Johns and William Hirt in a 1987
paper that described derechos
over the central and eastern U.S.
COMPILED BY EMILY YOUNKER,
EYOUNKER@JOPLINGLOBE.COM
SOURCE: THE STORM PREDICTION CENTER,
SPC.NOAA.GOV
lot of the Branson Ride
the Ducks the day after
last week’s accident had
enclosed canopies. A metal
frame similar to the one de-
scribed in the NTSB report
from Arkansas was visible
on the boat that was raised
from the lake on July 23.
Faram, the recent Bran-
son vacationer, said the
canopy on her family’s
duck boat two weeks ago
was in place during the en-
tire tour.
She also said the duck
boat had “windows” of a
plastic or plexiglass ma-
terial but that they were
“rolled up” during the tour,
giving the duck boat an
open-air atmosphere.
‘INHERENTLY LESS SAFE’
With respect to personal
flotation devices such as
life jackets, the 1999 NTSB
report stated they could
actually impede escape
from a boat with a canopy.
In Arkansas, passengers’
“natural buoyancy” forced
them into the canopy,
making it harder to flee,
it said. Life jackets would
enhance safety on ducks
without reserve buoyancy
“where canopies have been
removed,” the report says.
Faram said that as her
family’s duck boat left two
weeks ago, one of the crew
members pointed out the
life vests — placed along
the top of the vessel, within
reach of the passengers —
and explained how to put
them on. He also said that
adults should put their own
life vest on before helping a
child, akin to the directions
passengers receive about
oxygen masks on airplanes,
Faram said. No one was
instructed to put one on,
she said.
Even when all potential
variables — such as the
stormy weather that de-
scended on the Branson
Ride the Ducks craft —
present favorable condi-
tions, by their very nature,
the Coast Guard analysis
says, duck boats are “in-
herently less safe” than
“conventional passenger
vehicles.”
Because they must be
capable of land and water
travel, the report says,
ducks have a heavy chassis
and wheel-drive system,
presenting flotation chal-
lenges. One of the recom-
mendations the NTSB
made in its report on the
Lake Hamilton crash was
that duck boats install “re-
serve buoyancy” such as
foam or bulkheads to help
the crafts stay afloat even
when flooded.
While the report says
Branson Ride the Ducks,
following the 1999 accident,
responded to the recom-
mendation saying it had
Timeline
THE NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION
SAFETY BOARD on Friday released
information gathered from the
video recorder camera system
salvaged by divers after the duck
boat sank July 19 at Table Rock
Lake near Branson. Seventeen of
the 31 people on board died.
HERE’S A TIMELINE of the events as
they happened:
• 6:27 P.M.: The captain and driver
boarded the previously empty
vehicle. The driver sat in the
driver’s seat and the captain sat
in the side-facing seat to the right
of the driver. The captain operates
the duck on water and the driver
operates the duck on the road.
• 6:28 P.M.: The crew was told to
take the water portion of the tour
first by an individual who briefly
stepped onto the rear of the boat.
(Normally, the land tour is taken
first).
• 6:29 P.M.: As passengers were
loading, the captain made a verbal
reference to looking at the weath-
er radar prior to the trip.
• 6:33 P.M.: The vehicle departed
from the terminal.
• 6:50 P.M.: In the vicinity of the
boat ramp, the captain briefed the
passengers on safety including the
location of emergency exits and
the locate of the life jackets. The
captain moved into the driver’s
seat and the driver moved into the
seat directly behind.
• 6:55 P.M.: The boat entered the
water.
• 7:00 P.M.: Whitecaps appeared on
the water and winds increased.
• 7:00 P.M.: The captain returned to
the driver’s seat. The driver low-
ered both the port and starboard
clear plastic side curtains.
• 7:03 P.M.: The captain made a
handheld radio call, the content of
which is currently unintelligible.
• 7:04 P.M.: An electronic tone
associated with the bilge alarm
activated.
• 7:05 P.M.: The captain made a
handheld radio call, the content of
which is currently unintelligible.
In the final minutes of the recording,
water occasionally splashes inside
the vehicle’s passenger compart-
ment.
SOURCE: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
plans for a prototype duck
with added buoyancy, such
a craft or retrofits to exist-
ing ones were not required.
It is not known whether
the company went forward
with the development or
whether the duck that sank
last week had additional
buoyancy systems in place.
The industry’s response
to the NTSB’s recommen-
dations for added buoyancy
was “disappointing,” the
agency’s report says. Sever-
al operators considered the
modifications it would take
to add the necessary flota-
tion unfeasible, NTSB said.
An engineering study the
NTSB commissioned after
the Hot Springs accident
showed that the duck boat
there would have sunk
completely in six or seven
minutes given its lack of
reserve buoyancy.
According to the NTSB,
more than 21,000 duck
boats were made around
the time of World War II.
The boats’ initial purpose
was to transport munitions
and other supplies between
land and water during
firefights. Eventually, thou-
sands of them were modi-
fied for use in commercial
tours. The NTSB report
says more than 1 million
people take duck boat rides
throughout the country
each year.
‘SQUALL LINE ON STEROIDS’
Some witnesses have said
the lake was calm and the
storm came up suddenly
on the evening of July 19.
But meteorologists have
pushed back, noting that
the National Weather Ser-
vice issued multiple severe
weather warnings in the
hours before the duck boat
sank.
A severe thunderstorm
watch was issued for the
Branson area around 11:30
a.m. on the day of the sink-
ing. The watch indicated
that conditions were favor-
able for the formation of
severe thunderstorms with
winds reaching 70 miles
per hour.
The weather service then
issued a severe thunder-
storm warning at 6:32 p.m.
for the three counties that
include Branson and Table
Rock Lake, following up
with a statement at 7:02
p.m. that winds of 70 mph
were possible. At the time
of the initial warning, ra-
dar readings suggested that
the leading edge of the line
of thunderstorms — where
the wind would be stron-
gest — would hit the lake
at about 7 p.m., said Doug
Cramer, a meteorologist
with the National Weather
Service station in Spring-
field.
The storm that struck
the duck boat originated in
north-central Kansas and
had tracked south-south-
east throughout the day,
passing through Spring-
field before hitting the
Branson area, Cramer
said. Because Table Rock
Lake’s channels are ori-
ented north-to-south, that
meant the winds had the
entire length of the lake to
sweep through. The lack of
trees or structures over the
lake meant very little fric-
tion, and that helped the
wind reach its maximum
potential, according to a re-
port from The Washington
Post.
The storm is being clas-
sified as a derecho, which
Cramer described as “a
squall line on steroids.” In
Springfield, the weather
service clocked wind gusts
of 74 mph, while the Bran-
son airport logged winds
of 63 mph and the Branson
West airport measured
winds of 52 mph, he said.
“It’s a common type of
thunderstorm this area can
get,” he said.
A marina operator close
to the Branson Belle — who
was granted anonymity by
the Globe in order to speak
candidly about the events
of July 19 — said it was
obvious to him as early as
5 p.m. that boats needed to
come off the water. He said
dark clouds could be seen
in the distance well before
the squall.
“If you’re on the lake,
you can see it,” he said.
“It’s really quite simple. ...
And I can guarantee every
time you see that front
coming, you’re going to get
lightning, you’re going to
get wind, which is going to
cause higher waves.”
He said he does not be-
lieve there is anything
about the marina’s location
or direction that allowed
employees there to be more
aware of the storm than in
other locations on the lake.
“I personally think that
the tragedy could have
been averted,” he said. “Be-
ing the design of the (duck)
boat, you’re a giant anchor
sitting there just above the
water. It’s truly tragic, and
it’s really hard to take in
but, yeah, you can see it
coming and that means get
off that water.”
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS contribut-
ed to this report. Monica Faram,
interviewed by the Globe, is the
news editor of The Times Review
in Cleburne, Texas, a paper that
shares a parent company with The
Joplin Globe.