Looks like someone was not paying attention - from MSN/The Washington Post:
The violent storm behind the duck boat tragedy was well-predicted, not ‘out of nowhere’
Seventeen people are dead after a severe thunderstorm capsized a duck boat in Branson, Mo., Thursday night.
In the wake of the tragedy, Jim Pattison Jr. president of the parent company for Ride the Ducks Branson, said the storm “came out of nowhere.” This is simply not true. Meteorologists had been tracking the storm for hours, and their forecasts offered considerable lead time for the hazardous weather.
“[T]his indirect blaming of meteorologists was old a decade ago and is completely inappropriate in this particular situation,” wrote Mike Smith, a retired meteorologist and former executive at AccuWeather in a blog post.
The National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm watch, signaling conditions were favorable for dangerous storms in the region, at 11:20 a.m. Central time, nearly eight hours before the storm struck. The watch cautioned “widespread damaging winds likely with isolated significant gusts to 75 mph possible.”
As the storms drew close, the Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm warning at 6:32 p.m. Central, indicating a violent storm was imminent, about 30 minutes before the boat capsized.
The Ducks have had a very bad safety record - time to get them out of service although the incident in Branson was just sheer negligence and that particular company needs to be sued into bankruptcy.
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