Chattanooga Ducks talk safety after Missouri tragedy

The death toll in that duck boat that capsized in Missouri is now 17.

It flipped over during a storm last night in Table Rock Lake near Branson.

Chattanooga has a popular duck boat ride near Ross’s Landing downtown..and the tragedy in Missouri raises the question of how safe are those boats.

News 12’s Ashley Henderson tells us tonight that the rides are tightly regulated.

The amphibious landing craft known as Duck Boats have been around since world war two. They were used for landing troops on shores in Europe and Asia.

With Duck Boat operators today…the number one issue is safety.

Chattanooga Ducks owner Alex Moyers tells us “In Chattanooga we’re very fortunate that the river is protected, we’re not out in the open water, we’re never more than fifty yards away from shore, we’re never more than a hundred yards from one of the bridges. We also check the weather constantly. And we don’t go if the weather’s bad, or if we even think it’s going to be bad.”

“Yeah, we do the safety talk at our debarkation point, which is required by the coast guard to point out all the safety gear.”

With passenger safety as their top priority, they take many weather related precautions.

“We don’t go if the wind is over twenty knots, even if it’s clear and beautiful, we still don’t go, uh, we don’t go if the river flow is above eighty thousand cubic feet coming through the dam, ’cause it’s too much current.”

In their entire history of operation here in Chattanooga, the Ducks have never had a safety related issue.

“The accuracy of the weather apps now are so good, that we’re able to pretty much avoid that. If we do get caught in one of these crazy pop up thunderstorms that just show up out of nowhere, the guys are trained to seek shelter under one of the bridges.”

All of the Duck captians are Coast Guard licensed Masters.

In Chattanooga, Ashley Henderson, News 12 Now.