THE VIDEO REPORT FROM THE SLOVENIAN NEWS AGENCY on the canoeing mishap has been added to the story filed earlier today.

Click HERE or scroll down to it.  It’s the complete video that shows the canoeists paddling over the brink of the dam into the hydraulics.

Updated and Video added.  Scroll down.  

IN LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA, DOZENS OF RESCUERS ARE WORKING ON the River Sava this morning following a tragic accident involving two large canoes.  So far, seven bodies have been pulled out of the river and five more are still missing.  Two survivors were transported to a hospital Thursday evening, but one of them later died, bringing the death toll to 8.

There is a new hydro-electric dam being built on the river and soon a section of it will be permanently under flood as the dam gets higher.  A group of local officials organized a river trip along the scenic stretch and called it “The Final Descent.”  Four large canoes started down the fast-moving river amidst a bit of fanfare and live tv coverage.

As they approached the construction site, two of the boats pulled over to the shore.  But the other two apparently decided to “ride out the rapids” approaching the low dam. 

Delo News

STA, the state-run Slovenian Television Agency, reported:

Slovenian TV journalist Goran Rovan, who had been in one of the safe canoes, told the state-run news agency STA that the other canoes capsized and broke apart when they hit the whitewater passing through the dam gates.

The occupants fell into the river and were sucked by the rapids into the underwater tunnel leading to the generator turbines.

Slovenian TV showed chilling footage Friday of the canoes entering the dam, followed by the sound of screams. Then the kayaks broke up, overturned and capsized.

Rovan said people rushed over and managed to help the two who had reached the shore, but could do nothing more because of the river’s dangerous currents.

He told STA that almost none of the victims wore life vests.

 
Rescuers continue to search for the
missing canoeists near the dam Friday morning.
(Reuters photos)

A local mayor, who is also a member of parliament, was one of the victims.

Update, 8 pm Eastern:
At the moment, the casualty count remains the same …. 8 dead, 5 missing and 1 hospitalized.

This is the Slovenian Television Agency video.  It was taken by an STA journalist who was in one of the boats that used good sense and did not go over the spillway.  You can see the victims blithely paddling cluelessly over the brink.  It’s only about a 3 ft. drop, but the hydraulics broke the boats and sucked them into the churn.

IT WAS JUST OVER A MONTH AGO that the Fulton County (Kentucky) Rescue Squad had to shut down its operations for lack of a reliable truck. Their current vehicle was judged unsafe to drive by the members.

Firegeezer covered the shutdown HERE and told of the membership resigning en masse when the town of Hickman wouldn’t assist in providing the funds for a replacement.

The rescue squad did not provide any medical or ambulance service.  The all-volunteer company responded to calls for vehicle extrication, river search and rescue, setting up helicopter landing zones and performed the town’s weather spotting.

We are happy to report that an agreement has been made by the town to pony up some funds and the volunteers are back helping their community.

WPSD Ch. 6 Paducah has the good news video report:

A FRANKLIN, TENNESSEE, FIRE MARSHAL WAS DRIVING TO HIS next inspection Friday morning when a motorist flagged him down.

The distraught driver had his wife and a baby-not-breathing with him and was on the phone to the 911 center when Wayne Morris arrived.  The mother was holding the near-lifeless infant when Morris took over, clearing the baby’s airway and getting it breathing again.

Nashville Ch. 17 has the full video report:

BOY SCOUT OFFICIALS HAVE ANNOUNCED THAT everybody who was at the Little Sioux Scout Ranch last night has been accounted for.  As a precaution, rescuers are combing the area of the destroyed Boy Scout camp to see if there are any heretofore unknown campers still injured.

A tornado ripped through the remote area at 6:35 pm Central last night (see Firegeezer early report HERE.) catching the 93 boys and 23 camp staffers without warning.  About half of the scouts were out in the woods on a hike and the remainder were getting ready to view a movie in one of the camp buildings when the tornado struck.

All the boys in the building took cover properly, but the twister made a direct hit on the campground buildings reducing all of them to rubble.  Camp leaders saw a funnel cloud forming and tried to sound a siren attached to the camp’s administrative building, but it wasn’t clear if they hit the alarm.

A camp ranger’s residence was reduced to rubble
along with all the other buildings in the ranch.
(Onawa Sentinal photo)

The search and rescue crews that were first on the scene had to cut and press their way through destroyed woodland amidst heavy rains and lightning before they could reach the camp and begin rescue efforts.  The 1,800 acre ranch is located about 40 miles north of Omaha, Nebraska.

Four of the most severely injured scouts were
airlifted out of the reserve.  (Onawa Sentinal)

The latest report confirms that the total number of fatalities is four, all of them boys, and the number injured is 48.

A high school in Mondamin, Iowa, was used as a
secondary triage and staging center.  (AP/Harnick)

One of the senior scouts gives a description of what was going on inside the camp as the tornado hit:

The governor of Iowa is expected to hold a press conference at 8 am Central time.

Compiled from AP reports.  Updates will be added during the day as information is released.

 UPDATE:  Thursday AM.  See the more recent Firegeezer updated report HERE.

A TORNADO IN IOWA STRUCK A BOY SCOUT CAMP KILLING AT LEAST 4 around 7:00 pm Central time tonight.  Approx. 40 people who were injured were taken to local hospitals.

The first reports are just coming in with this from the Associated Press:

A spokeswoman for Iowa Homeland Security says at least four people were killed and 40 injured when a tornado struck a western Iowa Boy Scout camp.

Iowa Homeland Security spokeswoman Julie Tack says a search and rescue team has been deployed to the camp near Little Sioux in Harrison County. She says the camp is covered with debris and downed trees after the tornado hit about 7 p.m. Wednesday.

Tack says there were 93 campers and 25 staff members at the camp. The campers were between 13 and 18 years old and were attending a leadership training camp.

 Homeland security officials were coordinating with local authorities and said that it was an ongoing search and rescue mission and that it was possible some might be trapped under debris at the camp.  They took cover when the severe weather started to come through, but almost all of the buildings in camp were destroyed. 

The 1,800 acre Little Sioux Scout Ranch normally has boys from both western Iowa and eastern Nebraska attending.  It is located about 40 miles north of Omaha.

Note:  These are early reports.  It is likely that numbers of casualties and damage reports will change overnight.

KETV Omaha Ch. 7 has some early raw video HERE.  But it is mostly taken outside at the staging area.

SUNDAY AFTERNOON IN CLARK COUNTY, WASHINGTON, an ATV rider suffered a serious accident in a  state forest recreation area.

The 24-yr.-old man from Vancouver was riding along one of the many forest trails when he somehow went off the road and over a steep embankment.  It was estimated that he went about 50 ft. into the air over the chasm.  After crash-landing he was badly hurt with hip and back injuries, but nobody in his riding party knew that he had crashed.

Fortunately he had his cell phone with him, but he was in a remote area where cell service is next to non-existent.  But in his case Providence was on his side because when he tried to call the 911 center, somebody answered.  By the slimmest of chances, he got through.  But he couldn’t tell them exactly where he was other than the Jones Creek Recreation Area.

The East County Fire and Rescue Department was dispatched to the call with not much information to go on other than the knowledge that the man was still alive somewhere in the large forest.  A response of seven firefighters plus an ambulance with two paramedics had the task of finding him.  Since the victim was still connected on the phone, Capt. Mike Carnes decided to try out a revised version of the “hot-and-cold” game.

Riding up and down the trails in the squad truck with the siren sounding, the victim was able to relay when he could hear them and if they were getting closer or going away.  Within a short while they found him lying at the bottom of the embankment and completely out of sight from the roadways.  Within an hour he was packed up and in a rescue helicopter where he was taken to the Vancouver hospital in serious condition.  Without the cellphone and the good fortune of the freak connection, he would likely have never been found.

The complete story is in The Columbian HERE.

THE DULUTH, MINNESOTA, FIREFIGHTERS WERE REMINDED LAST WEEK that public service calls come in all shapes and sizes.

The Duluth News Tribune REPORTED:

Two women were walking downtown Wednesday evening when they saw a distressed duck in a parking lot near Second Avenue West and Michigan Street, said Duluth Fire Assistant Chief Rich Mattson. When they got closer, they saw that 10 ducklings had fallen through a sewer grate and were swimming in the cistern below with no way to get out.

The firefighters and a police officer evaluate the
integrity of the structure before entering
to effect the rescue.  (Duluth News Tribune photos)

It took about an hour to get all the ducklings to safety. Mattson said after the fire department left the scene, the two women reported that the ducklings had rejoined the mother duck.

The happy family, together again, heads back to the pond.

IT WILL BE DAYS BEFORE ANY DEFINITIVE EXPLANATIONS will be offered about this morning’s crane collapse in New York City.

Currently, rescue efforts are still in full effort with hundreds of emergency personnel searching for victims.

Search dog works the rubble at the
base of the collapsed crane.  (NYT photo)

A late story in  the New York Times has a description of what happened just before 8 am:

Witnesses said the horizontal arm of the crane began to circle and then snapped off, propelling the cab and the upper portion of the arm onto a white-brick residential building across the street.

The cab smashed into the top floor of the building, demolishing a portion of a 22nd-story penthouse, then plunged down the north facade, knocking off balconies and leaving a trail of pockmarks down to a Duane Reade drug store on the street level.

It was reported elsewhere that two city sewer workers were directly underneath the falling crane and were struck by it.

NY Times

The Times says further:

The accident occurred just two months after a tower crane collapsed on East 51st Street between Second and First Avenues, killing seven people and prompting an extensive review of the safety of cranes in the city.

Just this week, city officials said they would no longer require inspectors to be on hand at construction sites when a crane is erected or made taller, ending a policy put in place after the Midtown accident. The Buildings Department said on Wednesday that it would switch to a system of spot checks and “safety meetings” where workers would be briefed on proper procedures.

Read the complete Times article HERE.

The AP has this video update:

Any further updates will be posted later tonight after any confirmed reports are issued.

NY Times

SHORTLY AFTER 8 AM THIS MORNING a construction crane collapsed in New York City for the 2nd time in 10 weeks.

WABC

The top section of the crane and the counter-weight, with the operator onboard, came apart from the lower sections and plunged approx. 12 stories to the ground.  There are more than 100 FF’s on the scene searching for victims in the rubble.  So far, 4 fatalities have been retrieved.

After the top section fell to the ground,
the remaining sections fell against the top
of a building across the street.  (WABC)

The Associated Press has some early raw video:

This is a developing story and will be updated as information comes in.