Running Iowa tornado/flood thread

Re: Tornado-ravaged Iowa community needs SANDBAGS (area now dealing with floodin

From the Des Moines Register:

A tornado tore through a Boy Scout camp in western Iowa this evening, killing four Scouts and injuring dozens more.

The camp is the Little Sioux Scout Ranch, located between Blencoe and Little Sioux, about one hour north of Omaha in Iowa's Loess Hills.

Arli Hasbrouck, a spokesperson for the Boy Scouts of America's Mid-American Council in Omaha, confirmed that four Scouts were killed in the tornado. She did not know how many were injured.

"That's all we know at this point," she said. "We've got lots of Scouters on their way to help."

She said 100 youths, aged 14 to 18, were at the Little Sioux Scout Reservation for a week-long leadership training camp called Pahuk Pride.

Adult leaders were present as well. The camp started on Sunday.

The boys would have been from parts of Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota, the area covered by the Mid-American Council, which owns and runs the Little Sioux reservation.

Hasbrouck said sirens went off at the camp, and there was a warning. She did not know if they were staying in tents or buildings.



"I've got to go, we've got lots of parents calling right now," she said.

Becky Griffis, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Omaha, said the tornado went through the area at about 6:35 p.m, about 12 minutes after the warning went out.


Hospitals put on stand-by, blood bank on alert

Lisa Stites, spokeswoman for Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha said the hospital has been put on stand-by status and a call was made for all available physicians in the area.

"We are getting ready to assess the situation. And I'm not sure how many physicians will be able to get to the hospital safely because of the storm," Stites said from a cell phone while being driven to the hospital by her husband. "I'm driving on Park and 30th Street through the rain. It's just sheets of rain, thunder and lightning. There's a lot of water on the road, but it's all flowing to the gutter. The wind has picked up and it's just blowing the rain."

Sioux City hospitals have been put on alert, and the Siouxland Community Blood Bank is asking for donation to help with emergency blood transfusions.

The blood bank put out an alert at 8 p.m. asking for blood donations.

“In the past 25 minutes we have had four people come in. We’ll be open as long as people come in. We anticipate taking donations tonight and tomorrow,” said Heater Marreel, blood bank director of recruitment.

Marreel said the blood bank was notified by Sioux City hospitals that they expect people by injured by the tornado will sustain traumatic injuries, including blood loss.

“If someone is in a traumatic accident, such as a storm or tornado, they could need substantial units of blood. They could need anywhere from 2 to 200 units of blood,” she said. “We are specifically looking for O negative because anybody and everyone can receive O negative blood. We’ll take as many people as we can get.”

The blood bank is located at 1019 Jones Street in Sioux City.

Neighbors heard nothing

William and Darlene Bowman live about three miles north of the camp.

"We heard nothing," she said. "It was raining real hard and the wind was really blowing. We were kind of watching out the window and had the kids go to the basement, but we didn't see anything."

She said she has seen multiple rescue vehicles drive past.

"You never think it¹s going to happen to you or in your area," she said.

"My husband looked at me when we heard and said, 'Oh my gosh, this is too close to home.'"

 

Re: Tornado-ravaged Iowa community needs SANDBAGS (area now dealing with floodin

I'm sort of pissed off about the lack of national coverage these floods are getting. ALL I see on the big three cable news networks all day is Obama-McCain crap, with the occasional 30-second loop of footage of a house falling in the water.

He's a story gift-wrapped for 24-hour news networks (let's be honest though...most of them ceased being 24-hour live networks sometime after 9-11), yet nobody gets off their fucking ass to do anything with it.

The local newspapers in these regions have done great jobs posting updates on the web, but it's a pain in the ass to sift through all the material to find the latest and greatest tidbits.

 

Re: Tornado-ravaged Iowa community needs SANDBAGS (area now dealing with flooding)

Am I reading this correctly?

Do they want to send boy scouts into an area just hit by a tornado? You should be telling them to stay home and let the properly trained authorities handle the injuries and cleanup.

 

Re: Tornado-ravaged Iowa community needs SANDBAGS (area now dealing with floodin

This breaks my heart. I'm very involved in Scouting at both the troop and district level and this just stinks.

Prayers to the parents, families and fellow Scouts.

And for all you getting hit by these floods, prayers to you as well.

 

Re: Tornado-ravaged Iowa community needs SANDBAGS (area now dealing with flooding)

Scouters doesn't just refer to Boy Scouts as in, the under-18 boys. Without knowing the situation, there could be adult volunteers on the way and many of them would be highly trained in outdoor survival, disaster and first aid/first responder, just to mention a few.

 

Re: Tornado-ravaged Iowa community needs SANDBAGS (area now dealing with flooding)

I was just about to point that out. More than likely that guy is referring to adults, not kids.

 

Re: Tornado-ravaged Iowa community needs SANDBAGS (area now dealing with floodin

That's just heart-breaking. I couldn't imagine sending my son off for Scout camp, where he would be sure to make some of the best memories of his childhood, only to get that phone call.

This weather - the heavy rains, the high winds, the tornadoes, the lightning dancing so close you can feel its heavy footsteps - has been so present it almost seemed abnormal yesterday when the sun was out for most of the day and the breeze was gentle.

 

Re: Tornado-ravaged Iowa community needs SANDBAGS (area now dealing with flooding)

A tornado came within a couple miles of our Scout camp last week.

Our troop (Mr. Rosie is Scoutmaster) goes to camp in two weeks and three of our boys (my son included) are going on a canoe trip instead of staying in camp.

Yeah, suddenly I have a small case of the nerves.

 

Re: Tornado-ravaged Iowa community needs SANDBAGS (area now dealing with flooding)

I've been out tonight sitting in on a meeting to postpone a Habitat for Humanity project, and then helping some friends move out of downtown Des Moines as the manholes bursting from the seams and water flooding the immediate downtown riverfront. 

I come home to hear about this. 

I slammed my fist on my desk after hearing this just now on Nightline. 

12 minutes.  It's 12 fucking minutes!  How god damn hard is it to run out there and get those kids to a shelter, anything?  I'm hurt and angry right now. 

NoOneLikeUs, the national news, particulary the cable news networks (CNN, Headline News, MSNBC, and Fox) can go to fucking hell we don't need them.  They'll run to New Orleans for a hurricane, or to California for a forest fire, but Fly-Over country (Midwest) is a blip on the screen.  That's what makes the Midwest special in the eyes of many: we're not media-hungry for attention. Sean Penn will never come here paddling a boat, and Kayne won't saying F-you to the mayor of Dunkerton, Iowa.

We don't need them.  Honestly, they only get in the way of us busting our asses off to help each other during this hell-filled month so far. 

 

Re: Tornado-ravaged Iowa community needs SANDBAGS (area now dealing with flooding)

D-3, I believe the kids were in a shelter, a place designated for safety during severe weather, but the shelter, along with most of the camp, was wiped out. One thing we've all learned in Iowa this spring is you are not safe anywhere and nothing is promised you.

I agree with you about the national media, so I was surprised to see Nightline had something on the Scout camp. Of course, during the segment on the weather in this state, I believe they did call it Saylor Lake and not Saylorville. Even regional guys get it wrong. A TV crew from Omaha made the long drive to Parkersburg, a community they kept referring to as Parkerstown.

My first thought about Drake hosting NCAA track this week was it didn't work out very well, strictly as far as the competition is concerned with the flooding creating headaches for Drake SID Mike Mahon - even if he is a headache himself - and all the teams involved, especially the ones who had to change hotels. But maybe it's OK they are all here right now. I'm sure most of them didn't know much about Iowa, a state smaller than many metropolitan areas, but now they see people like you, D-3, and thousands of others like you. They'll hear stories about neighbors helping neighbors and strangers helping strangers during this hellish month of tornado tragedies and devastating floods.

Iowa can't dress up for the occasion, because a suit and tie or a dress doesn't go very well with work gloves, but it already has its best face on.

 

Re: Tornado-ravaged Iowa community needs SANDBAGS (area now dealing with flooding)

NX, thanks for clearing the shelter part up for me. I wasn't sure if they were still out in their tents or they were taking cover when the tornado touched down.

I am lot more calm this morning than I was last night. I was very upset, not because of what happened in Little Sioux, but a long-held belief that as long as we take shelter during a tornado, we'll be safe.

I was totally wrong. Parkersburg, New Hartford, and Little Sioux somberly showed me that today.

 

Re: Tornado-ravaged Iowa community needs SANDBAGS (area now dealing with flooding)

I completely understand your frustration. All of us in this state understands. Between the tornadoes and the floods, we all feel it, too.

One of my first thoughts when I first walked through Parkersburg was how that EF5 also decimated that long-held belief by most of us that if you have enough time, you can run and you can hide. But that is simply not true, which made it scarier for my family and I as we huddled in the basement late Saturday night when the town's tornado siren was going off.

Sometimes, there is absolutely nothing you can do. You can make plans, but you are not in control. You can do everything you are "supposed" to do and still have the paradigm shift on you. It sucks to be powerless.

Keep up the great work in DSM.