Certainly a tragic event and one that we can always look back on and say it "could have, should have been avoided." I don't think any of us know enough of the specifics to say how if should have. The thing is, there wasn't likely just one mistake, but multiple ones that compounded themselves. Should they avoid going out anytime there's a severe thunderstorm warning? Well, there are now ball parks and stadiums that will delay in those circumstances because of fan exposure to lightning. I don't know what size crew aboard, but one of my first questions would be had they been through training and practice in quickly deploying life jackets and abandoning ship and I doubt they had. Or at what point of weather conditions do you require them to be worn.
I think inherently we know two things. First, tour boats on Table Rock Lake shouldn't sink. If they do, they're out in conditions they shouldn't be and/or they didn't have a plan to bail out and get to shore or shallow water quickly. Second, in warm weather on Table Rock Lake, no one should drown or die otherwise as a result of a sinking of a boat. Hopefully steps will be taken to keep either of those events from happening again.
I've seen tour boats on other lakes and in coastal areas that worried me. Lack of staffing to handle emergencies. Weak captains. I've known some captains of such boats I wouldn't hire as a captain of a 40' trawler, much less put hundreds of lives each day in their hands, but it doesn't pay what experienced captains would require.
People who get on tour boats, and I've done it, get on with a lot of naivety, never thinking of the risks. We don't think of where the life jackets are and how we'd get one if needed. Now when taking a ride on Table Rock Lake or elsewhere, we'll be more aware, but for how long. Will the steps be taken to make us safer? Are tour boats elsewhere just thinking "sure glad it didn't happen here" or are they addressing "how to keep it from happening here."
I came up with a land comparison of risk. There is risk to any vehicle on the road and any bus. However, time and again we find groups that have chartered based strictly on price and gotten the worst buses and often drivers who shouldn't have been on the road. They never thought of the risk, but we all became more aware after the accident.
We've become aware of amusement ride risks with certain operators only after the fact.
I have no idea the regulations on the duck boats, on the boats themselves or the training of captains and crews. However, the typical battle is "if you make me do that it will put me out of business". Perhaps it needs to be "if we don't make you do that, lives may be lost." Could regulations have prevented this? Yes, if they had included not going out with severe thunderstorm warnings and training and staffing to prevent a situation like this from becoming fatal. Might they be "too expensive" for the operators to continue? I don't know, but if operators can't operate safely then they shouldn't be operating.
Thing is that we as consumers don't know and often don't think. I know had I been vacationing there, I could have seen myself taking a duck boat ride before, but now definitely would never do so. The conditions seen are not some rogue wave or condition as that's a part of the country with those conditions periodically as Lake of the Ozarks encounters. The point is that this wasn't some horrible bad luck, this was a failure to take the steps to protect. Although this wasn't foreseen, it was a foreseeable event and no steps taken to prevent it.
