An Indianapolis woman recuperating in a Missouri hospital after losing nine family members in a boating accident says part of the reason the family went on the excursion was for her 9-year-old son with autism.
Tia Coleman says her son Reece was "the happiest, sweetest boy" and made every day worth living. She says he loved the water and her family took the Ride the Ducks tour because it was something he'd enjoy doing.
Coleman's three children and six other relatives died Thursday when the amphibious duck boat they were riding in capsized in a severe thunderstorm on a southwest Missouri lake.
Investigators say 17 people died. That's more than the total number of deaths on Table Rock Lake over the past decade.
The National Transportation Safety Board and other agencies are investigating.
The U.S. Coast Guard says a duck boat that sank on a Missouri lake in an accident that killed 17 people was built during World War II and had passed an inspection in February.
The Kansas City Star reports that the Coast Guard said the craft was the 33-foot-long Stretch Duck 07 built in 1944.
Lt. Tasha Sadowicz is with the Coast Guard's regional office in St. Louis. She says a majority of the 22 Stetch Ducks operating in Missouri were built in 1944 or 1945.
She said the duck boat that sank during a thunderstorm Thursday was inspected annually. Investigators say none of the 31 people on board was wearing a life jacket.
In 2016, an inspection revealed that the boat's fire detectors were inoperable, but they were later repaired. And between January and April 2015, the Coast Guard kept the boat from sailing.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol says the 31 people aboard a Missouri tourist boat that sank weren't wearing life jackets.
The patrol released an incident report Saturday with details about the Thursday accident that killed 17 people. They were aboard a vessel known as a duck boat that capsized in Table Rock Lake near Branson after storms quickly moved into the area.
The incident report notes that the amphibious vehicle was overcome by strong winds in a thunderstorm, which caused the vessel to swamp and then sink.
Among the dead are nine members of a single family.
A longtime friend says the Indianapolis couple who died along with seven family members on a Missouri tourist boat enjoyed traveling together after they retired. They especially liked big family trips.
Seventy-year-old Horace "Butch" Coleman and 69-year-old Belinda Coleman, who went by "Toni," were killed Thursday when the boat capsized in a storm near Branson. A brother, two of their adult children and four grandchildren also died.
Maxine Gilliam has lived in the same neighborhood as the Colemans for more than 40 years. She says, "We were like family" and her family is "devastated."
Gilliam says Butch Coleman worked for UPS before retiring and coached youth football for more than 40 years, a position son Glenn Coleman, a 40-year-old also killed Thursday, took on when he got older as well.
Toni Coleman was a talented seamstress who was like a sister. She says "If either of us needed to talk, we'd go to Dairy Queen and unload while we ate ice cream."
A Branson resident who says she's ridden duck boats on Table Rock Lake about 10 times says she's never seen anyone wearing a life vest during the ride.
Kathy Ford said Saturday she's lived in Branson for 19 years and has taken her 4-year-old great-granddaughter on a duck boat ride. She said the operators of the boats will show passengers where life vests are, but she has never seen any rider put one on.
Seventeen people were killed when a duck boat capsized Thursday on choppy waters. The accident happened as winds approached hurricane strength.
Ford said the Thursday's storm was one of the worst she's seen in Branson.
Ford said she works at nearby theme park Silver Dollar City and was leaving work as the storm began. She said the park usually alerts staff when a storm is approaching. When she left, she had been given no notification about bad weather and the park had closed no rides.