Little Sioux Scout Ranch

Owner

Mid-America Council, Boy Scouts of America

Location

Little Sioux, Iowa

Country

United States

Coordinates

41°52′40″N 95°58′50″W / 41.87778°N 95.98056°WCoordinates: 41°52′40″N 95°58′50″W / 41.87778°N 95.98056°W

Website
Official website

The Little Sioux Scout Ranch is a 1,800-acre (730 ha) Scout reservation operated by the Mid-America Council of the Boy Scouts of America. It is located in Little Sioux, Iowa, about sixty miles north of Omaha, Nebraska in Iowa's Loess Hills and 15 minutes east of Interstate 29.

Hiking trails cover the camp, which is forested with mowed meadows and has both developed and remote campsites. There are also four cabin shelters and a 15-acre (6.1 ha) lake. The Mutual of Omaha Administration Building was completed in 2000, and two years later the MidAmerican Energy Pavilion was finished, seating 300 at picnic tables. Individual packs, troops and posts use the facility, along with Order of the Arrow conclaves, and district and council camporees. Pahuk Pride, a week-long National Youth Leadership Training event, is held annually at the camp.

The camp was the site of a tornado that killed four Boy Scouts and injured 48 others on June 11, 2008. Many awards for heroism were awarded. The camp reopened in 2009.

At 6:35 p.m. CDT on June 11, 2008 an EF3 tornado struck the camp during a Pahuk Pride National Youth Leadership Training (NYLT). There were 93 boys and 25 youth and adult staff members in attendance; four boys were killed and 48 injured. Scouts attending the weeklong Pahuk Pride event at the camp were from Nebraska, Iowa, and South Dakota.

The National Weather Service office in Valley, Nebraska said they issued a tornado warning 12 minutes before the twister hit the camp. People at the camp reported having five minutes between sighting the funnel cloud and touch down at the camp. Some reports indicated that a relay hub that would have alerted the scouts sooner was temporarily inoperable as it had been struck by lightning and was in a restart sequence when the original warning was issued_{[Citation needed]}. The actual sounding of the tornado siren at the camp was due to manual activation of the camps siren from a staff member in the Mutual of Omaha Welcome Building. According to a camp counselor, nearly all the injuries and fatalities happened when a small cabin that some campers took shelter in was destroyed by the tornado. The Scouts were split into two groups for the event and had taken shelter in two different buildings when the storm hit. The tornado was one of 28 reported in that time period, spread across eastern Kansas and into Nebraska, Iowa, and Minnesota. Many of the injuries were reported to have happened when a brick fireplace in the northern shelter, where the Scouts were taking cover, was destroyed by the tornado winds. A truck parked outside was thrown through the air and may have struck the building.

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Wikipedia