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Last nights' storms here in Iowa did more damage than anyone had planned for, including this...

Tornado Kills 4 in Iowa Boy Scout Camp


The remains of a ranger's house at the Little Sioux Scout Ranch in Iowa Wednesday.

By CHRISTOPHER MAAG and GRAHAM BOWLEY
Published: June 12, 2008

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Four teenagers were killed and 48 people were injured when a tornado tore through a Boy Scout camp in western Iowa on Wednesday night, according to a spokeswoman for the Iowa Homeland Security Division and news agency and local newspaper reports.

Those killed were identified by public safety officials as Josh Fennen, 13, Sam Thomsen, 13, and Ben Petrzilka, 14, all from Omaha, and Aaron Eilerts, 13, a camp staff member from Eagle Grove, Iowa.

Tornadoes also touched down in Kansas, Minnesota and Nebraska on Wednesday, according to The A.P. Those tornadoes killed at least two people in northern Kansas, destroyed much of the small town of Chapman and caused extensive damage on the Kansas State University campus, according to The A.P.


Zach Jessen a survivor of the tornado that killed 4 scouts Wednesday night talks with Iowa Gov. Chet Culver
in Blencoe, Iowa, Thursday.

In Iowa, all of the scouts had been accounted for late Wednesday, after rescuers cut their way through downed trees and debris to reach them, The A.P. reported.

“There had to be sawing and stuff to get to the scene,” said Russ Lewrenson of the Mondamin Fire Department.

The scouts, ages 13 to 18, were participating in a leadership training course at the camp, the Little Sioux Scout Ranch, about 40 miles north of Omaha.

“These were some of the top scouts in the area,” said the Homeland Security spokeswoman, Julie Tack.

There were 93 campers and 25 staff members at the 1,800-acre camp, which includes hiking trails, a 15-acre lake and a rifle range.


Taylor Willoughby of Bellevue, Neb., and his father, H. Taylor Willoughby, were at the Boy Scout camp in Little Sioux, Iowa,
when it was hit by a tornado on Wednesday night.

Trevor Ruffcom, a 14-year-old who went into the camp after the tornado, told The Omaha World-Herald that the camp had been wiped out. The house of the camp attendant was gone, he said. “Sights I’ve seen, I’m never going to forget,” he said.

At least 42 of those injured were still hospitalized on Thursday morning, suffering from everything from cuts and bruises to major head trauma, said Mr. Meyer, the public safety commissioner, The A.P. reported. At least four of the injured had been airlifted from the camp, he said.

The deaths of the four boys evoked another fatal tragedy that struck the Boy Scouts in July of 2005. In that incident, four men, two of them scout leaders, were setting up a tent at a Boy Scouts jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia when a pole got too close to a live power line and the men were electrocuted.

On Wednesday, a spokeswoman at Burgess Health Center in Onawa, Iowa, Beth Frangedakis, told The A.P. that 19 victims of the tornado that swept through the camp arrived at the center at around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Their ages ranged from 2 months to 15 years, plus three adults. She said four were admitted to the hospital, one was taken by helicopter to Mercy Medical Center in Sioux City, Iowa, and the others were released. She would not describe the nature of the victims’ injuries.

Taylor Willoughby, 13, of Bellevue, Neb., said several scouts were getting ready to watch a movie when someone screamed that there was a tornado, The A.P. reported. Everyone in the building hunkered down, he said, but windows were breaking.

Parents were instructed to go to the Little Sioux Church of Christ for information. “Parents just don’t know what’s happened to their kids yet,” Wayne Bahr, the church pastor, told The Des Moines Register. “I always try to offer comfort, but it’s so fresh, people are more consumed with getting information right now.”

The tornado was one of 28 reported late Wednesday moving across eastern Kansas and into Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota.

The tornadoes hit as eastern Iowa struggled with severe flooding. Earlier, officials ordered the evacuation of parts of Cedar Rapids as the Cedar River continued to rise, and other sodden communities in the Upper Midwest braced for more flooding.

At 5 p.m. Wednesday, the Cedar River was at 22 feet, 10 feet above flood level, according to the National Weather Service.

That level, five inches shy of inundating downtown, had already topped past flooding, including 1993, when the river crested at 19.3 feet. But the water was still rising, and the Weather Service predicted that it would swell to a new high water mark of 24.7 feet by Friday evening.

Nine miles northwest of Cedar Rapids, Palo, population 900, was evacuated. In Waterloo, 50 miles northwest, part of a railroad bridge collapsed into the river, and officials evacuated some areas because of the rising water.

Sandbags in Cedar Falls, another city along the Cedar River, kept water away, but officials called for more volunteers to help.

Christopher Maag reported from Cedar Rapids, and Graham Bowley from New York. John Holusha and Anahad O’Connor contributed reporting from New York.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/12/us...DMEhQ6VI/5/mbw
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