BRANSON, Missouri--Divers on Friday recovered the last of the bodies from the wreckage of a "duck boat" that sank on Thursday during a storm on a Missouri lake, counting among the 17 who died nine members of a single family.
The World War Two-style amphibious vehicle was carrying 31 passengers including children when a microburst storm hit Table Rock Lake outside Branson, raising waves that battered the vessel and ultimately caused it to capsize.
More than three dozen people have died in incidents involving duck boats on land and water in the United States over the past two decades. Eleven members of one family, nine of whom died, were among the passengers on the duck boat that sank on Thursday, according to Missouri Governor Mike Parson who called it a "heart-breaking tragedy".
"Emergency responders and civilian rescuers helped avert an even worse tragedy as people rushed to help in extremely dangerous conditions," Parson said in a statement. He said seven of the 14 survivors had been injured, one seriously.
On Thursday at around 7 p.m. two duck boats were on the lake when thunderstorms rolled over it, churning the water. Both headed back to shore but only one made it. The driver of the other was among those killed, officials said.
Stone County Sheriff Doug Rader told reporters that the boat's captain survived. "From what I understand there was life jackets in the duck," Rader said, but he declined to say if passengers were wearing them.
The National Transportation Safety Board and U.S. Coast Guard were investigating, officials said.
The governor's spokeswoman Kelli Jones said the 17 victims were from six different U.S. states. Pat Cox, owner of a marina about a half mile from where the vessel went down, sent five boats and some 20 people to the rescue, most between the ages of 18 and 20.
"These people showed an amazing strength maybe that we don't always give them credit for," Cox said by telephone. "They had it and they took action. And they were good Samaritans."
The first boat's crew was able to pull two people from the waves, Cox said. "It was all hands on deck. We did everything we could."
Branson is a family-friendly tourist destination with attractions like "Dolly Parton's Stampede" dinner theater, the Amazing Acrobats of Shanghai and a Titanic museum with a model of the sunken vessel's front half.
Rick Kettles, owner of the Lakeside Resort General Store and Restaurant, said he had never before seen such conditions on the lake, which is a 67-square-mile (174 sq km) reservoir on the White River. "I am 54 and I started coming here when I was 6 or 7 years old. I have been on my lake most of my life and I have never seen it like this," Kettles said. "I am trying to figure out why the boats were out there. I don't get it, having a captain's license myself."
A microburst is a severe, localized wind gust, blasting down from a thunderstorm, typically covering an area less than 2.5 miles (4 km) in diameter and lasting less than five minutes.
