Certainly a tragedy, although their preparedness likely prevented it from being been much worse:

Rescuers find some victims buried under rubble; 48 people injured

BLENCOE, Iowa - Four Boy Scouts were killed when a tornado tore through a camp in the remote hills of western Iowa, Gov. Chet Culver told TODAY on Thursday.

The twister late Wednesday set off a frantic search to reach others in the piles of debris and downed trees. Culver described the scene at the camp as "horrific."

"All four of the young men who were killed were Scouts," he said. "The devastation was massive through the campgrounds."
Three of the victims -- Josh Fennen, 13; Sam Thomsen, 13; and Ben Petrzilka, 14 -- were from Omaha. Officials said the fourth victim was Aaron Eilerts, 14, of Eagle Grove, Iowa.
Culver paid tribute to the Scouts who came to the aid of their injured colleagues, describing them as "the real heroes of this story".

"I'm very proud of the young men who were up there who were able to help the Scouts in need," he told TODAY. "I think lives were saved."

Tornadoes also raked Kansas on Wednesday, killing at least two people, destroying much of the small town of Chapman and causing extensive damage on the Kansas State University campus.

Tornado siren

Lloyd Roitstein, an executive with the Mid America Council of the Boy Scouts of America, said a tornado siren went off at the camp, but the scouts had already taken cover before the siren sounded.

The boys had been in two groups when the storm hit the Little Sioux Scout Ranch in the remote Loess Hills. One group managed to take shelter, while the other was out hiking.
At least 42 of the injured remained hospitalized Thursday morning, with everything from cuts and bruises to major head trauma, said Gene Meyer, Iowa's public safety commissioner. At least four of the injured were airlifted from the camp, he said, refusing to elaborate on their conditions or identify the dead.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and the families of the victims," Culver said. "We continue to do everything we can to make sure those injured are going to recover."

All the scouts and staff were accounted for, Meyer said, adding that searchers were making another pass through the grounds to make sure no one else was injured. The camp was destroyed.

Thomas White, a scout supervisor, said he dug through the wreckage of a collapsed fireplace to reach victims in a building where many scouts were seeking shelter when the twister struck at 6:35 p.m.

"A bunch of us got together and started undoing the rubble from the fireplace and stuff and waiting for the first responders," White told KMTV in Omaha, Neb. "They were under the tables and stuff and on their knees, but they had no chance."

The nearest tornado siren, in nearby Blencoe, sounded only briefly after the storm cut power to the town, said Russ Lawrenson of the Mondamin Fire Department.

Sounded like a jet

Taylor Willoughby, 13, said several scouts were getting ready to watch a movie when someone screamed that there was a tornado. Everyone hunkered down, he said, and windows shattered.

"It sounded like a jet that was flying by really close," Taylor told NBC's "Today" on Thursday. "I was hoping that we all made it out OK. I was afraid for my life."
Ethan Hession, also 13, said he crawled under a table with his friend.

"I just remember looking over at my friend, and all of a sudden he just says to me, `Dear God, save us,'" he told TODAY. "Then I just closed my eyes and all of a sudden it's (the tornado) gone."

Ethan said the Scouts' first-aid training immediately compelled them to act. "We knew that we need to place tourniquets on wounds that were bleeding too much. We knew we need to apply pressure and gauze. We had first-aid kits, we had everything," he said. Ethan said one staff member took off his shirt and put it on someone who was bleeding to apply pressure and gauze. Other scouts started digging people out of the rubble, he said.

Agencies praised

At a news conference Thursday, Culver praised the scouts for "taking care of each other" as emergency workers from several state and local agencies cut through debris to reach the camp.

Roitstein reminded reporters at the news conference that the Boy Scouts motto is "Be Prepared."
"Last night, the agencies and the scouts were prepared," he said. "They knew what to do they knew where to go and they prepared well."

The injured were taken to Burgess Health Center in Onawa, Alegent Health Clinic in Missouri Valley and Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha.

Burgess spokeswoman Beth Frangedakis said 19 victims arrived at the hospital around 8:30 p.m. They included children ages 2 months to 15 years, plus three adults.

Frangedakis 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 wouldn't release the nature of the victims' injuries.

David Hunt, chairman of the Mid-America Boy Scout Council's Goldenrod District, which covers several eastern Nebraska counties, said he believed the boys were from eastern Nebraska and western Iowa.

The 1,800-acre ranch about 40 miles north of Omaha includes hiking trails through narrow valleys and over steep hills, a 15-acre lake and a rifle range.

'Relieved'

Gayle Jessen of Fremont, Neb., said her 19-year-old son Zach is a staff leader at the camp. He called his parents to say he had a bruise on an arm and was being treated at a hospital.

"I'm so relieved my son is OK," Jessen said. She said her husband was headed to the hospital to pick up their son.
Lawrenson said parents will be reunited with their children at a community center in nearby Little Sioux.

David Hunt, chairman of the Mid-America Boy Scout Council's Goldenrod District, which covers several eastern Nebraska counties, said he believed the boys were from eastern Nebraska and western Iowa.

The tornado touched down as Iowa's eastern half grappled with flooding in several of its major cities. The storm threatened to stretch Iowa's emergency response teams even further.

Tack said officials were confident that the state's emergency response teams could handle the crisis because western Iowa had been largely unaffected by the recent flooding.

2 fatalities in Kansas

Tornadoes also touched down in central Kansas, southern Minnesota and eastern Nebraska.

A line of tornadoes has caused widespread damage across central Kansas, killing at least two. A tornado caused significant damage in Manhattan and Kansas State University, tossing cars and destroying several businesses.
One person was killed in Chapman, where part of the roof of the high school gymnasium was torn off, emergency officials said.

Sharon Watson, spokeswoman for the Kansas Adjutant General's Department, said a half-mile-wide tornado tore through the town Wednesday night, destroying more than 60 homes and numerous businesses.

She said another victim was found dead outside a mobile home in the Jackson County town of Soldier.

A tornado ripped a house from its foundation, leaving a bathtub protruding from a back wall near Fulda, Minn., 140 miles southwest of Minneapolis. A woman inside at the time suffered a knee injury.

Another struck a farm near Springfield, Minn., causing extensive damage to outbuildings, but no injuries to people or livestock.

There were no immediate reports of damage from the Nebraska twisters, though a lightning strike knocked out radar at the National Weather Service's office in Valley, about 30 miles northwest of Omaha.

Jim

I saw a couple of the surviving scouts on one of the morning talk shows a little while ago. I must say that they appeared to be much calmer and collected than most adults would be after going thru what they went thru...

Could a simple weather radio have prevented these deaths?

Definitely a tribute to the scouts training that they only lost 4. They had first aid supplies on hand and knew how to improvise what they didn't immediately.

Probably not. From this comment:

"They were under the tables and stuff and on their knees, but they had no chance."

I infer that the fatalities were in the group already in shelter, not the group in the woods. Had they had extra warning - and I've seen no reports of that there was an earlier radio warning - they wouldn't have gone anywhere else. They heard a tornado siren after sheltering but before the tornado struck.

It doesn't minimize the importance of having a cheap weather alert radio at such a camp, but it appears in this case it was not a contributing factor: the tornado directly struck and took out the shelter.

It just goes to show that you can be prepared all you want but sometimes luck has a bigger influence on life or death than anything else.

Poor kids were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and sometimes nothing can prevent that.

From the article it appeared to me that they may have been crushed by the collapsed fireplace, or bled out from lacerations resulting from the broken windows.



Jim

Waiting for the first responders???? As I scout, if there is some medical emergency, then I think that I am the first responder...maybe that is just me though?

I saw a few minutes on the Today Show this morning. One boy said "...But we TRAIN for this. We have first aid kits, we know how to use them, we run emergency drills all the time...." But apparently that PREPARED reaction wasn't what she was looking for, because Ann Curry turned to a different boy and said something like, "but wasn't that upsetting to you, seeing all the injuries, hearing all the screams...."

I saw a little bit more on TV a while ago - the official couldn't say enough about the scouts - said by the time the emergency responders got there, they had set up their own triage and their first aid training and calm, immediate action had SAVED LIVES.

This story speaks to 2 current threads - one that talks about how important even a little preparation can make, and another that talks about the people (women in this case) who are training their kids and grandkids about what do do in an emergency, fitting them out with BOBs and teaching them how to use them.

It also says a little bit about the news media. No surprises there tho...