Posted on 12/10/2006 6:38:04 AM PST by surfer
For four days, as the snowbound Kim family's food supplies dwindled and they used up their gas running their stranded car's heater, no one even knew they were missing.
It was two more days before rescuers narrowed the search to roads leading across thousands of square miles of western Oregon, and another day before cell phone transmissions helped to pinpoint the search area.
While the speed of the investigation in some ways was remarkable -- given what little authorities started out with -- it was dogged by early missteps and obstacles that handicapped investigators.
A Portland hotel where the family had stayed refused to provide credit card records that might have indicated which way the Kims had gone. An early search by air and land of the treacherous mountain route that James and Kati Kim drove out of Grants Pass yielded nothing.
The owner of a lodge on the road where the Kims' car was stuck had told authorities three days before Kati Kim and her daughters were found that he had seen tire tracks in the snow, but he hadn't been able to follow them in his snowmobile once he hit bare ground. No one followed up.
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(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I said most of the time. This guy had not told anyone his route and people did not know he was missing. In this situation I would have walked out or died trying. Before leaving on a trip always tell a family member where you are going and your route. Also, check in from time to time.
Yes, that's exactly what happened.
There are several logging roads that come off of that road where they mis-turned - they were in the process of trying to search each of them with foot people, but even with 100 searchers, it wasn't enough. It's a Rubik's Cube situation.
There are gas stations on the Merlin exit although they may have been closed at the time the Kims were there.
Quite true...but given some clues the tire tracks etc. If anyone had look at the whole picture and used air search more extensiviely, maybe there would have been help sooner-maybe not.
And if they hadn't been there, he would've been socked with a bill from the county and the state for probably as much as $10,000. It's a tough call - but he did the best he could, IMHO.
You nailed it...as usual.
This is just too rich for words - you post the Florida state flag on your user page, yet you feel qualified to opine on whether/when one should drive in Western mountains in inclement weather at night!
Look, pal, anyone from Calif (especially the Bay Area) knows the story of the Donner Party. Heck, the peak over the Sierras on I-80 on the way to Tahoe is called the DONNER pass.
Same stuff happened 160 years ago - just because you're driving a car doesn't change the facts about the weather & environment.
Thanx for the input however - I'll keep it in mind (snicker).
I don't think so. I would have trouble sleeping for the rest of my life if it were me. The guy pretty much knew the family went that way. He could have organized a search party himself if the gov. didn't respond. His response was a totally socialist response-I told the gov. that's all I have to do...He just didn't give a damn.
See my #89.
BS. He did everything he could. For all he knew, the tracks he had seen could've been from the searchers who had allegedly driven that stretch already.
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" ... That Friday morning, John James, the owner of Black Bar Lodge on the Rogue River, got an e-mail from an employee who had read about the missing family. The subject heading read, "Whattaya bet they are up on Bear Camp?''
James said he had redirected "countless'' motorists over the years who had strayed off of Bear Camp onto the logging road that leads to his lodge and loops around. "I just had this feeling that they may be out there somewhere,'' he said.
He left a message with Rubrecht, but she didn't call back. He and his brother went out in their snowmobiles, but it hadn't snowed for a few days and they soon hit bare ground. Before that, however, they could see fresh tire tracks that had been snowed over recently.
Later that day, he ran into Rubrecht and a deputy on Bear Camp Road. He says he told her that someone needed to check the logging roads thoroughly, but "to be honest, they weren't in a listening mode.'' Rubrecht did not return calls for comment.
With no searchers having driven about 30 miles of Bear Camp Road, Dinsmore called for a helicopter from the state Office of Emergency Management. A Blackhawk military helicopter was dispatched from Salem.
"That took a while,'' Dinsmore said. "Sara and I determined we were going to clear the road by air. There are stretches of road where there's heavy tree cover and it's hard to see from the air. Sara indicated they would have a Sno-Cat clear the entire length.''
The helicopter went up late Friday afternoon, came back to Gold Beach at 5:30 p.m. to refuel and searched again until midnight. There was no sign of the Kims. Eventually, Dinsmore believed, Sno-Cat vehicles were able to make it through the entire road.
"We had cleared Bear Camp,'' Dinsmore said. "We cleared it as far as people could travel in wheeled vehicles and then with helicopter flyover into the nighttime hours.'' ..."
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At the time he heard about it, Friday morning, all the resources in the state were searching Hwys 42, 199, 101, 38. None of those are anywhere near his lodge.
They had NO IDEA where in all of SW Oregon the Kims might be.
That's an interesting thought.
You've certainly earned it.
They had quite of bit of gas. They ran the heater on gas for almost three days. To make it as far as they did in those conditions driving and then to stop and be able to run the heater for three days...how can you say they didn't have enough gas?
I found this post on another blog...it seemed to say the things that needed to be said. A person by the name of Roy posted it.
Im not the type to shift blame or deny individual responsibility being paramount. And to me, it is still not clear that the majority of the blame lies with Mr. Kim. Need more facts. At this point I¡¯d tend to give most blame to the maps/mapmakers. Some of the supposed mistakes Mr. Kim made.
-Not gasing up? How do you know that? If he left the Denny¡¯s at 8 pm and stopped at 2 am, that means he had enough gas to drive 6 hours in mountain country then run the engine for 3 more days to stay warm. Sounds like a full tank to me. To suggest he was low on gas shortly after he left the interstate is an idiotic criticism.
-travelling in winter? Winter doesnt begin for several more weeks. he got lost 2 weeks ago. Do the math.
-taking an unfamiliar mountain road? 42 is also an unfamiliar mountain road for him. Why should he double back when his map shows an even shorter route? Several maps make no distinction between 42 and 23. What, he¡¯s expected to have said ¡°I can trust this map on 42 but its obviously wrong about 23¡å? No map, not google, mapquest or paper should give the same weight of line to forest service road 23 that they do a major state highway (42). Thats a blatant mistake¨Cand that more than anything may have led to this tragedy. Mr. Kim wasnt sitting in a car near Grants pass looking over his options only to decide he was going to take a treacherous, windy, barely travelled, washed out, icy, boulder strewn nightmare of a road. He saw a road drawn in a line given equal weight to other major state highways. Why dont you pull out maps from around the nation and find other examples of a one lane forest service road given equal weight to State highways.
-continuing to drive for miles at night in bad weather? My understandings is that when they came to the rocks on the road and the snow became heavier, they aborted their efforts to reach Gold Beach.
-ignored the signs? Maybe. Or maybe he didnt see them in the dark. Given the number of people killed or lost here over the years, there is obviousy a MAJOR problem with the States signage. The Black Bar Lodge owner talked about how ¡°countless¡± tourists end up at his lodge and he has to give them directions. Well, thats one hell of a detour from 23 and that tells me its very easy even the summer during daylight to end up on this logging road instead of 23.
The SAR teams had a 100% success rate in the last four years, with over eighty rescues. They were making the best decisions they could.
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