11 dead as tourist boat capsizes in MO; others still missing

11 dead as tourist boat capsizes in MO; others still missing

A Missouri sheriff says at least 11 people have now been confirmed dead after a boat carrying tourists on a lake in a popular vacation city capsized and sank. Stone County Sheriff Doug Rader told MSNBC that the recovery of the four remaining missing bodies from Table Rock Lake "brings some closure" to the tragedy that struck the tourist vessel. (Reuters) - Divers on Friday pulled the last bodies from the wreckage of a “duck boat” that sank a day earlier during a storm in a lake near a popular Missouri destination, killing 17 people in one of the deadliest U.S. tourist incidents in years. Roger Brallier, who is a duck boat captain for the same company, told The Post that all of the captains are “very close.”

“Were it not for grace of God, it could’ve been me on the boat,” he also said. The president of Ripley Entertainment, Jim Pattison, which owns Ride the Ducks, told CBS This Morning that the boat “shouldn't have been in the water if, if what happened, happened.” He continued: “We had other boats in the water earlier, and it had been a very sort of calm experience up until this came very suddenly.”

Duck boats, which are popular around the U.S., operate both on land and in the water, in places like Baltimore, Boston, Washington, D.C., as well as in Branson. The schedule for Thursday showed there were tours every 30 minutes from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Steve Linderberg, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said a severe line of storms blew through the Springfield area between 6:15 and 6:30 p.m. "We had a line of very strong thunderstorms that caused 74 mph winds here in Springfield," he said. Following that incident, the NTSB warned the boats’ canopy roofs presented a hazard, making it difficult for people, even those wearing a life jacket, to escape when the craft begins to sink. Branson is a family-friendly tourist destination whose attractions include “Dolly Parton’s Stampede” dinner theater, the Amazing Acrobats of Shanghai and a Titanic museum with a model of the sunken vessel’s front half. Originally created by the U.S. Army for use in World War II, DUKWs (called “ducks”) were amphibious trucks shaped like boats that ferried ammunition, supplies and equipment from offshore ships to troops stationed on beaches. Duck boats have been involved in a string of deadly incidents that have killed more than three dozen people across the United States over the past two decades, by drowning and in crashes on land. The company that builds ducks, Ride the Ducks International LLC, agreed in 2016 to pay a $1 million fine after one of the vehicles collided with a bus in Seattle, killing five international students. Suzanne Smagala with Ripley Entertainment, which owns Ride the Ducks in Branson, said the company was assisting authorities with the rescue effort. Among the boat’s passengers was a sheriff’s deputy, who immediately assisted in the rescue effort, according to Rader. “The ducks have a ramp access where they put in, and when the wind hit it pushed the boat right square behind the Branson Belle.”

National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm warning Thursday evening for the Branson area. A sheriff in Missouri said a tourist boat has apparently capsized on the lake, leavin...

(Nathan Papes/The Springfield News-Leader via AP).
At least 17 people are killed and an unknown number of others missing after a duck boat carrying 31 people capsizes and sinks on Table Rock Lake in Branson, Missouri, United States.