Kim Search discussion page 10 (!)
The James and Kati Kim Family Search discussion now spans ten pages of over 10,000 comments. Click HERE for the back story, pictures, reports, and previous pages.
Governor Kulongoski’s Executive Order establishing SAR Task Force
The discussion continues below in the comments section.
The James and Kati Kim Family Search discussion now spans ten pages of over 10,000 comments and continues below.
For the back story, pictures, reports, and previous pages:
http://joeduck.wordpress.com/kim-story/
Thanks to JocoSAR for this reference to Governor’s Task Force for SAR:
http://governor.oregon.gov/Gov/docs/executive_orders/eo0701.pdf
If Regional politicians didn’t generate enough hot air, the ball gets bounced up to the statehouse for more hot air generation.
Atleast the Civil Air Patrol will be included this time. Maybe fixed wing resources will no longer be given such short shrift.
Thanks to leads from John James I’m getting more details from Jim Roper at the BLM about the project to improve Bear Camp signage. Please let me know by email jhunkins@gmail.com or here if you want to help out with this effort which will probably happen this spring.
The list of participants in the OSSA report includes a couple of CAP names. I don’t recall entries in the report about these individuals or CAP. The report does say that this case was unusual regarding the number of aircraft involved (though they were all helicopters). But, would fixed winged aircraft had any better success than the Carson helicopters?
Larry Kendrick Medford Civil Air Patrol Commander
Lieutenant Bob Soltz Civil Air Patrol
Bruce Barron Retired Air Force
I wonder if fixed winged aircraft were involved in the Stivers search. The object in that case was a larger 35′ RV. They were stranded near a ridgetop airstrip. They might have been easier to find from the air than the Saab in a small forest clearing. Maybe the big difference in that case was there weren’t many clues to help narrow the search area. That and the fact that the public didn’t feel quite as much sympathy for the victims.
Do the BLM signs on that north route need changing as well? While I have looked that route on shuttle map, I couldn’t name any of the BLM and FS road numbers.
paulj
Here’s an account of a NG crew using night vision equipment to locate a victim, or rather her fire. This was Carolyn Dorn, who was originally found by a couple of hikers.
http://www.krqe.com/expanded.asp?RECORD_KEY%5BNews%5D=ID&ID%5BNews%5D=19252
http://www.startribune.com/484/story/938433.html
These come from a NWHikers forum. I don’t know if anyone else is paying much attention to this case.
paulj
Bruce Barron was the Josephine County SAR Captain, who just happens to be a retired Air Force.
Barron’s name was in the list right after the two CAP people, so I just included it in the cut and paste. The list isn’t specific as to whether the individuals participated in the search and/or the study. Probably a mix.
paulj
Jeff Han demonstrating a wall-sized touch screen for Google Earth
http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2007/01/super_touch_screen_f.html
8 - Kip, that is awesome! Reminds me of watching Star Wars at the theater for the first time, for some reason.
(8) Kip, that is so cool! Thanks for the link. I think that is the best demo of Perceptive Pixel yet!
1090)-Page 9, John, thanks for taking the time to write the lengthy response and answer to my question. I had the same understanding about the “chain of command”, etc and that is why I asked the question.
Really glad to see that you spent the time with Sara and got to some resolution for both of you. I think in the future as other things happen up and around Bear Camp your knowledge of the area will be valuable once again and this time I think you will have everyone’s ear!
Trying to understand how you feel about not going back down that road - man that is a tough one. Very sorry to hear you have that burden on your back - personally I think you did what you thought was right and it ought to be left at that. Hindsight as they say is 20/20. I hope you can find a nice piece of baggage to drop that guilt in and send it on a one-way trip far away.
Your right about John R. and thanks for saying it. BTW the dictionary version of Hero definitely applies. Of course just don’t listen to Charles Wilson he uses an alien dictionary anyway.
Lastly as far at the BLM signage project, is there anything, anyone can do from far away to help somehow?
Kip RE: Touchscreen. Incredible and very cool.
8. Kip, Oh my, oh my, oh my…the brain of people who think of this stuff is astounding…
8/Kip: Wow…dare I ask, what does this technology cost if it’s even available to the masses ? Imagine setting up a search grid using that. Sure, maps work too, but in 3 dimensions, with the ability to readily manipulate ?
An impressive way to manipulate those pixels.
Often data is so complex that visual presentation is used simply because complex and voluminous ‘hay’ often conceals some very important ‘needles’.
That touchscreen thing reminds me of the Tom Cruise movie. “Minority Report” (I think that’s the title.
A new SAR case in neighboring Curry Co (a kayaker and his dog). A Coast Guard helicopter assisted.
http://www.triplicate.com/news/story.cfm?story_no=2474
See the Jan 26 Non Sequitur comic for a road sign. The base of Peavine detour might be just the place.
http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/
Not to be used for navigation:
Okay. I have seen various diagrams reproduced in magazines and training materials bearing such a legend. Now some of it to me is lawyer-talk and no one would have ever used it to navigate and in other situations perhaps a pilot actually might have.
Given the limitations of what a map can depict would a bold box of ‘This area not navigable with this map’ be appropriate for forrested mazes such as this one? Or would this particular forrested maze have such high use that some sort of supplemental insert should have been supplied?
I’m not suggesting a return to the days of maps bearing legends that read ‘beyond here are monsters’ but perhaps maps oriented toward tourists and main roads should bear an indication that they are instruments of limited usability in certain more remote and rugged areas.
Do I think the primary burden should be on the traveller? Ofcourse. Yet a more prominent warning legend might also help to create a psychological awareness of ‘you are entering the outback here, mate. Take survival gear with you. And a better map!’
Most state maps have expanded sections for major urban areas. The back 2/3 of the ODOT map has these, from a large one for the Portland area, to small ones for towns like Grants Pass. Of course these areas have higher road densities than the rural forest areas.
Other states have expanded sections for popular tourist destinations. South Dakota for example expands the Black Hills area, and includes FS road numbers. Yellowstone is another likely expansion candidate.
In Oregon I think the Mt Hood area, and Columbia Gorge deserve expansion sooner than most areas in the southwest, at least, based on tourist traffic. One multistate map book that I have expands Portland, Salem, and Crater Lake. The Crater Lake one includes viewpoints and picnic areas.
While Bear Camp has gotten a lot of attention in this case, it is hard to say whether it it unusual compared to similarly marked areas in the state. Some place I came across a 100 cars per day summer use figure, and significant number of those may be Roger River shuttle drivers. In the winter, most users are locals seeking winter recreation.
Among summer tourists, it may help to distinguish between those who are just seeking a short cut from I5 to the coast, and those seeking camping, hiking or boating opportunities in the area. This is a lightly visited part of the coast. Look for example at the density of day use state parks further north. To the south are the redwoods of California. The Rogue River is perhaps the biggest tourist attraction in this area. The part paralleling Bear Camp is the wildest, but areas upstream and downstream offer more recreational opportunities.
paulj
Evaluating the dangers of roads like Bear Camp is a bit like evaluating the dangers of cougars. Just in the news is a story of a couple who survived a cougar attack in a state park just a bit to the south in California. I just saw a Nat. Geographic documentary on cougar attacks on Vancouver Island. Yet the statistics are some thing like 1 cougar fatality in 3 years for all of USA and Canada. That is well below deaths by dogs, bees, snakes, etc.
Guess what road ODOT describes as ‘one of the most dangerous roads in Josephine Co.? Not Bear Camp. US199 on the west side of Grants Pass. Jo Co SAR is probably called out for more river accidents, and missing hiker cases, than for lost motorist cases.
On I90 crossing the mountains east of Seattle, there have been 4 deaths due to falling objects - 2 by a tree Thanksgiving weekend, and 2 by rocks a year earlier. Should there be warning blocks on the map: “Beware of falling rocks and trees”? Obviously the state needs to keep working at reducing these dangers by stabilizing slopes and cutting dangerous trees. But I don’t think general warnings and signs make much difference.
paulj
“‘you are entering the outback here, mate” - there is a part of Oregon that is nicknamed the outback - the half east of US97. Distances between pushpins are often on the order of 50 or 60 miles.
paulj
I would agree that a general warning sign would make little difference in the situations we read about and probably makes little difference in the situations we don’t read about (those wherein the signs are heeded) however certain highly trafficked yet dangerous routes are akin to the steep hills that have runaway truck escape lanes wherein emergency gravel patches will slow trucks that lose their brakes. Or consider those steep hills that just have an ‘extra’ truck lane off to the right for trucks that need to creep slowly along. Certain places are both full of mazelike spurs and also heavily travelled by the less than fully informed.
One of the issues that came up in the Kim search was resources, or lack thereof, for less affluent counties in Oregon like Josephine. This mornings Oregonian discusses the loss of key Federal funding and its affect on communities in the area - notably Talent, home of Joe Duck.
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1169871911293760.xml&coll=7
Hi to any regulars still lurking.
Miss the comraderie of you all, but concede until the Govs. Task Force releases its findings we’ve discussed this tragedy thorougly.
From another blog:
I worked with James Kim for five years and I knew him for probably 7 or 8 years and I never him to be a wealthy man. In fact, when he first got to San Francisco he was paid a barely liveable salary. He lived like a lot of us dotcommers– not much higher on the hog than a spartan college-type lifestyle… tiny apartment, living meager paycheck to meager paycheck in an ultra-expensive city. He worked his way up to where he was, but he was never what you would call wealthy. And his wife’s stores were selling crafts and such– hardly a super-profitable business.
25.Paul -
Yes, I also miss the comraderie & the intelligent discussion & even disagrement, it excercises one’s mind and gets one outside of one’s own exsistence & forces one to look at others views. If there is anything of any significance in the Gov. Task Force report, some will probably come back. Others who added a great deal here, I seriously doubt be will back under any circumstances as their lives have been negatively impacted on a personnal level by some people taking things much too far.
For anyone who posts on any form of public forum, blogs, etc. should keep in mind if they can not take people disagreeing with them, even at times getting a bit heated, then DON’T POST. They are not forced to post.
There’s an old saying, if you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen.
For JoCoSar,
Sara, if you are still checking this blog, I flew the River yesterday from Hog Creek to Agness (about 70 miles) looking for Curtis with no luck.There are a lot of boats down to Graves Creek and then none in the canyon ’till I got to the Clay Hill Stillwater. There are a lot of drift boats from Foster Bar to the ocean so I didn’t spend that much time down there. I looked over all the obvious eddys pretty well such as Horseshoe Bend, Battle Bar, Mariel,Blossom Bar Pool, Devils Staircase, etc. Some of the river is in the shade all day and is just real hard to check. On my way back over Hog Creek a women was standing by the river all alone waving so I landed on the boat ramp and talked to her for awhile. She is Curtis’ girlfriend of 14 years and goes down there everyday. She says the family has excepted the fact he is probably gone but they need closure so I will spend some more time in the Canyon when possible.
By the way, Bear Camp Road is open all the way over now. The loggers in the Agness area are using it but one must take the Peavine route and the Burnt Ridge route down the other side. I’m somewhat concerned about the big gullys on the Peavine route if they get anymore snow up there so I fly that route on my way back from Agness. The road slid in again at the 4.6 mile area of Bear Camp Road and went all the way across. It looks like it knocked the concrete barriers into the creek from the helicopter.
Call me sometime, I’d love to buy you lunch and I’ll come to Grants Pass.
John quite an honor to have you checking in here at the blog, and it looks like SAR over there has a great new volunteer.
I have JoCoSAR’s email and will pass this along immediately.
I think that the use of black unlabeled lines for paved backwoods roads such as Bear Camp, is a perfectly good way of saying: ‘There is a road connecting these communities, but do not rely on this map for navigation in this area’.
When I drive through an area like this using only an ODOT scale map, I use a combination of dead reckoning, and road signs to guide me. The distance signs (Gold Beach 60 miles, 40miles, 30 miles ..) are particularly useful. Since the map does not give road names, the road names on the signs don’t help me that much. Those distance signs were prefectly adequate to get Kims to the FS23 junction. They only ran into problems when they tried to find a way out of or around the snow on the main route.
Regardless of the scale of the map, there are always details that it does not show. Even a computer program like MS Streets &Trips at greatest zoom does not show drive ways. I don’t expect the map to warn me that certain details are missing. In most cases such warnings would only clutter the map, and obscure the details that are present. Digitized maps can get around that issue by turning details on and off, either automatically or under user control.
One piece of information that I would like to see on maps is a road speed. State and federal highways are engineered to meet certain speed standards, but lesser roads can handle anything from 50mph on good county farm roads to 15mph or less of rough forest roads. If Bear Camp was marked as a 30mph (or less) route, it would be less attractive as a shortcut.
However adding this kind of information is only practical with digitized data bases (computer, online, gps), and even there its usefulness will depend on the quality of the updates.
paulj
(28) John R…wow! Amazing to hear from you. Personally I think it is incredible that you take the time you do to help out.
Oregon is privileged to have you as a citizen. You are an inspiration for the rest of us.
Joe once again your special spot in the Internet never ceases to amaze! You really have created something awesome here.
John Rachor - wow, great to see you stop in here! You are just amazing. Thank you.
John Rachor is an amazing guy and certainly a super hero to our family. Joe, he does do you honor by stopping by.
His postscript in a communication to Sandy and me reads:
“The best thing I have ever seen in my life was Kati running around in the road waving her umbrella.”
I get choked up with tears every time I talk about John’s letter. I was privileged to read the quote above to both Kati and Governor Ted Kulongoski.
I talked with Kati this morning. She and the girls are doing well.
Sandy and I consider ourselves two of the most fortunate people in the world to have had our girls returned to us. We will always miss James, but at least he lives on vibrantly in two of the most lovely little girls a Grandpa ever had.
[28] - John Rachor, I certainly admire your initiative and your willingness to help freely… a super wonderful role model. Thank you!
Mr. Rachor, thank you for your heartfelt and selfless efforts in conducting your successful search for the Kim family.
Your willingness to use your off time and skills to help others sets you apart, and as Kip said, you are indeed a wonderful role model.
This blog has brought together so many who cared about this case, and your stopping by is another tribute to Joe. His integrity and lack of any agenda except preventing future such tragedies has made people feel comfortable enough to talk with us, and I’m grateful to him for having created Joe Duck.
Thank you again for what you did and are continuing to do.
Mr. Rachor, thank you for posting.
Some of the old regulars tonight
hi kip, glenn, madeleine, maggie, paul, frances, joe, I missed you guys this week! good to check in and see you guys!
and hi to you Kati’s dad. good to hear from you too.
Hi, Tara, Glenn, Dr. F., Maggie, and all the diehards who have been here all week while I’ve been checking in and out. I miss our discussions, too. What a treat to find a post from John Rachor!
28/John Rachor - thank you so much for your tireless efforts to help others. You’re an inspiration to us all.
Joe Duck - they say a truest measure of a man is the company he keeps. If this is true, you have fine company indeed (John Rachor, Katie’s Dad, Sara R, Detective Mike, John James, etc.). That you have created a very unique and special place for the voices of this tragedy to gather and share is indisputable. Thank you.
I, too, have missed all the voices checking in today. It is so very good to hear from you all.
Hello all!! Good to see that most of you have not left here completely! I think that we are all guilty of lurking around. Old habits die hard!
John, you are truly amazing…just as I told you when I met you in person, I am still “star struck!” I can honestly say that I have never met anyone like you in my life! What a blessing we are to have you here with us! I can’t wait for lunch…will it be Burger King Whoppers??
I have your card still, waiting for its frame in my office…I will be in touch. Thank you all!
PS
We had yet another search today. An 81yo male with Alzheimers left his house for a short walk in the middle of town. He was found about 4 hours later walking very quickly along the freeway southbound several miles from town. He thought he was “going home!” We picked him up and took him back to his very worried wife and daughter.
Hi,
I don’t really want to sound crass about things but I would just wonder if the cost of that ‘yet another search today’ Alzheimers patient could be tallied up and compared with the cost of those tracking bracelets for Alzheimers patients that were discussed well upthread.
Query: Did the “Burger King pilot” have a cell phone with him at the time he first encountered the stranded vehicle and gesticulating woman? Did he drop it?
paulj 22,,,
Okay. If there is a region of Oregon that is so remote and sparsely settled that it is informally known as ‘The Outback’, my question would be: do the auto maps of general distribution indicate the lack of motorist services in the area? Oregon is an unspoiled, outdoor recreation oriented state. Alot of areas are rural and perhaps dangerous in Winter, but is this one area known locally as ‘the outback’ indicated as being an unsafe area to enter without survival gear?
I know we’ve been over the issues of how sensible it was to take the route across to Gold Beach and how sensible it was to proceed without adequate clothing and food/water. We’ve also been over the issue of warnings by signage and by map legends. I just wonder if this one notable area that you mention happens to be indicated as a bit dicey on any of the maps that someone would pick up at the tourist-oriented rest stop near the state’s borders on the freeway?
As you know, #42, the ODOT map includes a box with an arrow pointing the route that the Kims took. Inside that box are the following words, in red type: “This route closed in winter.” Also, the Kims were seen by two separate witnesses, one of whom was interviewed once by an Oregon State Police officer and again by Portland Police detective Michael Weinstein, at a tourist information center in Wilsonville, Oregon.
The Kims got their ODOT map at that center, and the employee who spoke to them told them not to use back roads to the coast at this time of year. Maybe Oregon should have a personalized warning for each negligent traveler, augmented with flashing neon road signs and loudspeakers? Seriously, what more do you want?
The ‘ask locally’ warning box on the ODOT map is located in the lower right panel, close to the SE portion of the state. So an individual browsing that part of the map is likely to see that warning, more so than someone focused on the SW part.
Also most individuals entering this area have survived similarly remote parts of neighboring states. I don’t see any warning boxes on the Nevada state map. I84 from Utah has long stretches without services before it gets to Boise.
I expect that US395 heading north from Lakeview has a warning about ‘next services 140 miles’ (Burns). So the sheer lack of towns in SE Oregon will be a clue to most drivers that services are few and far between.
What might fool some drivers in SW Oregon is that they can get into spots without traffic and cell service that are only 30 miles from a freeway.
There was a well publicized stranding in NW Nevada near this remote part of Oregon. The Stolpas, driving to a family funeral in Idaho, tried to bypass snow on I80 by driving north in California, and then east on backroads aiming to reach NV140. One survival documentary built around the Stolpas experience, suggests using tires in a signal fire, just as James did.
paulj
Hello all! I have been keeping track of this blog over the course of some time. To tell the truth I really don’t know what to say. When I first heard this story I was sad and angry about what had happened and my first instinct was to find blame in someone or a certain group for what had happened. But after reading the thousands of exchanges between you all I realized that it wasn’t that simple. Certain folks seemed to be criticized more than others the Kim family, Josephine County, Sara R, and John James placing blame on himself. But I’ve found that there really is no one specific person or event to place blame upon is there. To our logical instincts that doesn’t make sense, but life doesn’t always make sense by our standards. There are people all over the world trying to find ways to take the lives of others and James Kim died trying to find a way to save the lives of his family. He tried to do something beyond himself, something bigger than logic I guess.
And even though we don’t know it yet I think James has succeded beyond his expectations. We will never know how many lives in the future James’s trek will save. Whether it be changes in search and rescue tactics or signs on Bear Camp Road. He, his family, SAR, and you all have touched peoples hearts, made people think, and that wealth can’t be measured. I think this blog should be required reading for anyone researching this issue. I have learned more from it than anything else I’ve read so far. Thank you all for trying to make things better in the future. Thank you JoeDuck for making this possible. I hope to hear from you all soon. Peace
Fools Gold #41
Yes, I was carrying a cell phone in the helicopter. I did not drop it to Kati for several reasons:
1-I could hover no lower than maybe 100′in her area due to the tall fir trees. I figure from that altitude the phone would become a projectile.
2-On bear camp road I only have cell service at the 9 mile area (weak), the 12 mile area (where the Kims tried to call, also very weak) and on top at the 20 mile area at the junction of the burnt ridge road(very strong).
3-I try to avoid hovering over anyone at low altitudes as an engine failure means you are going to descend onto them.I hovered off to the side where Kati could still see me until the Carson helicopters arrived.
4-I was fairly busy flying the helicopter, recording the lat/lon from my GPS, relaying the lat/lon to SAR command on one frequency, and talking to the Carson helicopters on another frequency.
5-I knew the SAR snowcats where only about a half hour away and were headed that direction.
6-I wanted to get back to the area where I had seen James’ footprints in the snow so I left Kati as soon as I saw Scott Dunn (from Carson) land down the road to pick her up.
I hope this answers your question and just let me know if you would like any other info.
John
#44, I have driven on I-5 through Oregon and U.S. 101 and lost cellphone coverage in spots. People not familiar with this part of the country tend to forget that Oregon is 1.5x the size of New England but with only 3.5 million people. It’s not the East.
Now, there’s something else that had gotten very little discussion on this board, probably because this is a place where questions and/or doubts about the Kims get, at best, a chilly reception. The issue is the fundraising efforts for the Kims by Scott Nelson Windels.
I’m not seeking to imply anything untoward about Mr. Windels. The issue is why those efforts are necessary. I was talking about the Kim case last week with a good friend who has an Asian business partner, and he was truly shocked about the Internet fundraising.
“Charlie, you have no idea how unusual this is,” he said. In all of the Asian cultures, family ties run very deep because of the Confucian influence. It’s nearly unthinkable for an Asian grandfather to stand back while people are running auctions to support his granchildren, my friend said. Even if the grandfather wasn’t wealthy it would be unthinkable.
I asked whether, say, the grandfather’s strong disapproval of the marriage would be enough for the grandfather to cut off the grandchildren in a situation like this. No way in hell, my friend said. The rift would have to go MUCH deeper than that.
This one of a bunch of aspects of this thing that makes me quite strongly doubt the veracity of the information Kati Kim has provided to authorities. I think there’s another story to be told. What it is, I’m not sure. We’ve done some speculating on our website, but it hasn’t involved the fundraising.
Something is deeply amiss here. For Spencer Kim to walk away from those grandkids, which the fundraising activity clearly implies, is a big shocker when you filter it through Asian cultural norms. Even acculturated Asian American norms. This sort of stuff just doesn’t happen.
45 - Theelkbugler, I’m just lurking lately, but I really liked how you summed up what’s been going on here on Joe’s blog and wanted to say that I feel much the same way as you do about… well, pretty much everything you said
Hey folks I’m just back from a trip to Roseburg. Thanks for the nice comments above and so glad to see several of you “checking back in”!
I stopped in Merlin at the 76 station, which is about 5 miles from I-5, to ask about the Kims. The attendants were pretty defensive but one said he thought it was the “morning shift” who talked to them. He suggested that the Kims should not have listened to directions so I got the idea they may have been misdirected but this was 2nd hand info.
One thing that made me realize how easy it would have been to think that road was clear was the fact that on the way south along I-5 you hit a couple of fairly high mountain passes. It would have seemed reasonable, even to experienced drivers, to think they were seeing the conditions in southern Oregon “mountain country” on the trip. Unfortunately the I5 elevations are much lower than Bear Camp, which gets very high very fast.
Charles you should give it a rest. As the story becomes clearer with pieces of new information you seem determined to challenge the Kim family and friends in inappropriate ways. Everybody understands your thoughts about this and I’ve let you post many pages of speculation here that I personally found offensive and probably inaccurate - no need to belabor these points here any more - keep them to your own site as you agreed to do some time ago.
50/Joe: Well said.
Significant time and energy went into building their site, but they are never content to stay there. Could it be no one wants to play in their sandbox ?…or that the only ones who want to play in their sandbox are those who totally agree with their perspectives so they get bored and are compelled to come here to try to stir up conflict ?
Does anyone recall whether there were weather warnings for Siskiyou summit that weekend? It has about the same altitude as Bear Camp summit. I recall snow warnings for Washington passes because relatives had to cross them, but didn’t pay attention to Oregon roads.
Kati was familiar with one of the lowest crossings of the coast mountains, OR 128 from Eugene. There are some hints that Bear Camp is higher, but, a casual map user could easily miss them. Brandy Peak at 5298′ is a bit to the south. The Rogue River is 5 miles to the north, while various tributaries of the Illinois River start on the south side of the Bear Camp ridge.
There is one creek on the north side of Bear Camp(Howard Ck.?). If I were modifying the ODOT map, I’d add Big Windy, and maybe a few others, just to add more clues that the area between Bear Camp road and the River is rough.
But a pass symbol with altitude and name might be a better addition. ODOT doesn’t do this for any non-state passes at the moment, but they do have the winter closure warning on selected routes such as this. Pass notations might reinforce the closure warnings.
paulj
It is possible that altitude figures, symbols or colors on a map might have alerted the Kims to the inherent danger in a wintertime trek through the area. In one area east of Seattle a “Pass Conditions” sign and radio frequency sign alert motorists well before they reach the summit. Ofcourse such a sign is on the freeway, not some back-country but commonly used shortcut which is safely used only in good weather.
Driving directions, maps, signage, deceptively alluring intersections, failure to obtain gas/food/water, failure to endure one more day of cold, hungry children… it all mounts up. I don’t know if any one item of and in itself should carry great weight. Maps can go unheeded and at night with poor lighting might not be of much use anyway. Signs can go unnoticed or can be obscured by the very snow they are warning motorists about. Through routes to the coast can be marked, but such a sign can direct someone away from a nearby shelter of some sort.
One thing the posts here and the official reviews have shown me is that there was a great deal of work done to locate the missing family. Far more paperwork involved in this project that I could ever have imagined. Sure there were some ’speedbumps’ to be overcome such as the hesitancy of the hotel to reveal credit card and cell phone data even under usually honored procedures. Sure there were some limitations imposed by lack of resources in poorer counties. Mistakes and miscommunications are not exactly ‘par for the course’ but they are not exactly unheard of either. The various reviews and meetings are attempts to determine what could have been done better and to see that next time things go better. I think that for the most part a great deal of work was done in a very short time period and that overall it was a job well done. Its simply the results that we don’t care for but those things do indeed happen from time to time. Maps simply can’t bear warning legends about not trusting gas station attendants who seem to communicate poorly. Not every backcountry logging road can have a sign stating ‘deceptive slope…will not lead below the snow line’. And just as there may have been miscommunication at the gas station there may have been some later miscommunication about ‘cleared roads’ and ‘Bear Camp Rd’.
In many fields precision of communication is paramount. Standarized language of aviation, procedures for a two-man police car running lights in Manhattan traffic, identifying who a good tipper is when a dealer gets relieved to go on break, etc. Some fields have ‘one write’ procedures simply to avoid repeated communication of the same information. Some fields try to enforce specific phrase selection on a form. I don’t know how practical that would be out in the snowy discussions about spur roads though! In this day of clipboard computers maybe precise data entry out in the field will become more important. Certain errors have cost lives: the police clerk who entered ‘MO’ for Montana sent the warning to Missouri. A patrol car screen might need to display on the two letter abbreviation but the headquarters screen had space enough for the full name. Yet things went wrong. One cop miscopied one digit in a long serial number and the gun was later used to kill several people. Information has to be conveyed precisely in certain circumstances. It can be difficult though.
Joe Duck, I realize that you are loath to question or challenge the Kims any any way, shape or form. You have never been interested in the truth, but rather in promoting a particular slant that omits the most pertinent in formation, i.e., the paramount role of the Kims own negligence, Mrs. Kim’s lack of candor with authorities, key contradictions in the accounts and various other signs that there is much else not being told.
The real question is why you want to do this. Why do you want only part of the story to be told, Mr. Hunkins?
re51: I gather news relating to the Kim story, search and otherwize. I want a complete picture of what happened. Even if it’s just my own curiosity, I have a right to do that. Joe can delete all the posts he wants of course, but I have a right to go where I need to go to gather the information, and it certainly includes a lot more places than just here. I keep my visits here to an absolute minimum required.
Unfortunately for me, I still need to keep track of news here. Believe me, I wish that were not so. Paul, you suggest that I just go to my “sand box” and stay there. That is ridiculous, I’m more open minded and curious than that. Your conjectures about my behavior show that you are in fact visiting our site yourself, and that you yourself are very interesting in keeping this an adversarial relationship with your comments. How I wish I didn’t have the opportunity to have to read your adversarial comments, Paul.
54 There is no underlying sinister story or attempt by Kati to misrepresent facts except in the misguided and persistent imaginations of Charles & Dee.
You know I stated I was not going to post here and I haven’t. Yet something keeps bringing me back to see what you all are talking about. I am befuddled that you all are STILL debating it. MOVE ON!!! Can’t you just accept that someone lost their life trying to save his families life? A wonderful woman is alive with two beautiful children to live on in the legacy of their father. It is NOT healthy for you all to be dwelling on this story, for heaven’s sake you weren’t there; you will never know what it was like!!! You can sit back and back seat quarterback the story all you want, however I didn’t see you there, you weren’t there give it up! You have spoken about EVERY aspect of this search; I truly believe you have left no stone un-turned. You have now turned this into a pissing match of who’s your friend and what sandbox you are playing in. The site is WONDERFUL it was a great place to be able to be, it has attracted more attention then you will EVER know, BUT GIVE IT UP! The search is OVER! You all need to move on, you are dwelling on things you can’t fix, what happened to the great thought processes of gathering what could be better, gathering contacts to send your ideas to HELP…..Have you lost your focus here????
Wow, RRR78. I mostly agree with you. However, I have not been considered a part of this “group” for quite some time. I was in all practicality booted out and ignored, because of who I associated with and saying some negative things about this blog thread core group. And I know by addressing you, I’m opening myself up to quite some lambasting. Personally, I harbor no negative feelings toward you or any SAR personnel. I admire you all. As I said, for my own reasons, I collect info on Kim story. That is NOT all I do in my life. I have a life, I enjoy my family, and I golf (especially when weather is decent), and I have to earn a living and I’ll keep my jobs to myself. I believe it is important to track the Kim story because of future impacts from policital meddling by Spencer Kim and others. I think they may try to close off Oregon public lands and enforce rules and laws on us that cost Oregon a lot of money, and threaten our land use beliefs. And naturally I don’t think the Feds will be giving us a penny to comply with their regulations and demands. For me, it is beyond what you have described, whether you want to believe it or not. I would not post here either, except to defend myself when I feel it’s important. I have another website beyond the KimTragedy site, it’s the OregonSAR site where I’m trying to attract and encourage support for SAR, it’s starting to get a bit of attention. I’m proud of it, it is what I can do at this point for SAR, I think the volunteer teams deserve support. Now everyone can pile on me like usual.
58/Dee & 57/RRR: I am not going to “pile on you”, I commend your SAR site as a worthy efforts to try to help. I am a bit taken aback by RRR’s post in that, if she has been following, she would know that the traffic here at JD has dropped significantly from what it was to a snails pace and that the vast majority of “the regulars” have, indeed, moved on.
As to visiting your site, yes, I have, but very infrequently. I have never posted there. Ostensibly you built the site to engage like-minded individuals in debate and discussion and to put forth your perspective on events. Why, then, is Snarls forever here baiting people with what we know all too clearly are your perpectives ?? Then, if people have the audacity to make a comment he takes exception to, he threatens to sue them ??
I think the fact that individuals like John Rachor, Kati’s dad, Det. Mike, Sara R, John James, Eric F, Brian A., etc., feel comfortable enough to post here speaks volumes for the quality and caliber of Joe’s site. To the best of my knowledge, you cannot make the same claim. I would offer that Snarl’s persistent posts are nothing more then Joe Duck envy.
I can only speak for myself, Paul. There is no envy toward this blog comments thread. There is no competition. The goals and structure of our site are completely different. I would offer that the “comfort” you’ve mentioned is caused by a very controlled environment, and that’s Joe’s right. We cannot afford that kind of comfort. Thanks for your acknowledgements, I appreciate it. I simply don’t see the reason for this to be adversarial, but I understand that is rather complex at the moment.
“Joe Duck Envy” I like it!
All I can say is: (a) please don’t feed the trolls (b) this is a blog with many other interesting entries (c) I am glad I stuck to playwriting and never took Journalism 101, much less Ambush Journalism -100…
Kati’s Dad, my sympathies to you and your family. It is hard to loose the good ones young.
Joe Duck,
Thanks for trying to get some info out of the gas station in Merlin. I haven’t checked the timeline specifically but if the person who gave them directions would have stepped forward during the search it may have made a huge difference. I guess they may have not realized that a family was missing. My question is how many 30 something aged Asian guys with a Saab come through there asking for directions to Gold Beach? On the other hand the attendant could have left town or doesn’t follow the news closely. Whoever it is probably knows by now and may feel to afraid or guilty to come forward, that is understandable. I have a hard time believing management doesn’t know who would’ve been on shift at that time. What do you all think, is it better left alone?
The following is a speculation about what might have happened. We are not presenting it as a definitive or factual account.
On Nov. 25th, the Kims get up relatively early in Portland. They have brunch with their friend at 10 a.m. or so. The Jan. 18 Sheriff’s Association report mentioned brunch at 10 a.m. in the timeline, and “morning” on page 6 of the timeline. Moreover, in our experience, kids don’t sleep in. They’re usually up bright and early, especially the four-year-old.
Scott Nelson Windels posted that the Kims finished brunch at 2 p.m., but we doubt small children would sit still for four hours. We figure that brunch ends at 11:30 or so, and that the Kims stop at Wilsonville between noon and 12:30. This would match the recollection of the employee who gave them the highway map and coastal brochure, and of the second employee who recognized the Kims but did not speak with them. It would also match the one employee’s recollection of a discussion of “scenic routes” with Mr. Kim; it would have been light out and therefore a discussion of scenic routes would have made sense at that time of day.
Like others of its type, the Wilsonville information center is stocked with dozens of brochures. We speculate that, as James Kim talks with the one employee, Kati and the kids wander around the racks. She picks up other flyers, including one or more advertising the wineries in the North Willamette Valley. James is on record being a wine lover, and Oregon is known for its pinot noir production in particular.
We speculate that the Kims look at the brochures either out in their car or just before they leave the tourist center, and that when Mr. Kim spots the winery brochure he wants to visit one. But Kati, having spent four years in Oregon as a student, says, “James, we really don’t have the time.” James Kim wins that argument, and they go off in search of wineries. Along the way, Mr. Kim uses a cellphone make a reservation at TuTuTun. The wineries of the North Willamette Valley are located between Wilsonville and Halsey, about 20 miles west of Interstate 5.
The Kims spend more time at the wineries than either of them had intended to, but especially more time than Kati had intended. It’s dusk by the time they got back on I-5 heading south, and it’s dark as they refuel in Halsey at 6 p.m. They haven’t even made it as far as Eugene; they’re a good five hours or more from Gold Beach, not including stops. Kati’s not happy when she calls the TuTuTun Lodge to tell them to leave a key by their door. “We’ll be lucky to be there by 1 a.m.,” we can imagine her saying.
James replies, “Not to worry. Did you see that road from Grant’s Pass? It goes straight there.” They decide to take the route without studying the map; all they notice is the black line depicting the route, not lingering long enough to read the winter driving warning. We speculate that James Kim doesn’t worry about the caution from the employee against using the back roads, taking it to be an obligatory warning that doesn’t have to be taken too seriously. “I’ve been on the back roads from Eugene to Florence,” Kati might have said. “This will be no different.”
They have dinner in Roseburg, and when they get back onto I-5 at about 9:30 they ignore the turnoff to Hwy. 42. According to locals, the turnoff is well-marked and, if missed, can easily be reached by a short backtrack. Once they get to the wilderness route, Kati sees that it’s much more rugged and remote than the Eugene-Florence route she’d been imagining. “Damn it, James, we can’t do this,” she says, as snow falls hard along their route. “Let’s just turn around and stop for the night along I-5. ”
“The hell we will,” James Kim replies. “We’ve prepaid $250 for the room. Not only that, but we’ve got to drive to Mendocino tomorrow and that one’s a real pain. 101 and Hwy. 1 twist and turn like crazy, and you go 15 miles an hour along a lot of it. Let’s just do this and get there.”
As they pass the fourth sign located just past the logging road intersection, Mr. Kim says, “You’re right, this is bad. I better turn around.” At that point, having noticed how narrow the road was on the way up, Kati Kim replies, “If you turn around we could go over the edge. You’re going to have to back down.”
Mr. Kim slowly backs down the road until they reach the intersection with the logging road. Along the way, he has to open his car door to see through the swirling snow. At the intersection it’s snowing hard, and they’re both feeling a bit panicky. Now Kati Kim steps in. “This is a fine mess you’ve gotten us into,” she says to her husband. “Look, that other road goes lower. We can at least get out of the snow, and maybe we can find our way to Gold Beach.”
James Kim takes the road, figuring they can get to the coast. In fact, they barely even get through all the snowdrifts. After another 20 miles they’re hopelessly lost. They’re exhausted, too, so they decide to call it a night and get some sleep. They get up the next day in the rain. Kati Kim recalls seeing a snowplow on their way up Bear Camp Road. The Kims get out of the car and think they hear a plow in the distance (later, they realize it was rushing water). “If it’s raining down here, it’s snowing like hell up there,” we imagine James Kim saying. “So we’d better wait until the plows get down here and they lead us out.”
That never happens. By the time they’ve spent a few more days in the car, Mrs. Kim is angry at her husband for getting them into this situation, possibly including the detour to the wineries. We imagine a car full of hungry, rattled and fearful occupants. The kids are crying, the wife is yelling. So James Kim goes off in search of help, and winds up dying.
When the survivors are rescued and the police question Kati Kim about the ordeal, we speculate that she omits the Wilsonville stop and the winery detour because of how it would look. After all, they were warned against using the back roads. Being so late on account of visiting wineries might make everyone think we were a pair of irresponsible yuppies, Mrs. Kim thinks. We imagine her telling the police that they left Portland late; that they missed Hwy. 42; that they sort of blundered into all of this.
Much of that story would have been true. The Kims did blunder into it, and they were late. But, if our speculation is accurate, it wouldn’t be whole story. The Kims did nothing felonious or immoral, but they were negligent. Such things happen, but the kicker is that there were kids in the car with them and that makes it less excusable. Which might be why Kati Kim doesn’t want to talk about the whole story.
Once again, we need to be clear that we are speculating. There could be other explanations as to why the Kims left Portland late. Scott Nelson Windels, their friend, wrote that it was because they didn’t end brunch until 2 p.m. and then went to boutiques. A poster on an Internet website speculated that the Wilsonville sighting was of a different couple consisting of a white woman, an Asian man and two young children. The employee who identified them as the Kims did so because “all Asians look alike,” the poster speculated.
To us, that’s a stretch. We believe the Kims stopped in Wilsonville. They might have done so later than we think and/or stopped not at wineries but somewhere else — perhaps to see a different friend, or to do some Christmas shopping at an outlet mall along the highway. But if it were a friend or a mall, why conceal it? That’s one of the reasons we’re speculating about wineries. But in the final analysis, it’s impossible to know. Kati Kim knows what happened, and we suspect some of her friends know what happened. But we’re not sure anyone else will ever know.
Why haven’t the police pursued the answers to these questions? Two reasons. First, no crime was committed. Second, Mrs. Kim is an attractive young woman, recently widowed with children, the subject of a torrent of sympathetic media coverage. If the police pursued the contradictions, it might look “cruel.” So, from their point of view, it might be better to let sleeping dogs lie.
What should the Kims have done? What was their biggest error?
Regardless of whether our speculation about wineries or other stops is accurate, we’d say the die was cast at 6 p.m. on Nov. 25 in Halsey, when the Kims reconfirmed their hotel reservation in Gold Beach. They should have called the hotel — to cancel. Then they should have taken I-5 to Grant’s Pass, and U.S. 199 to Crescent City, California. They’d have been in Crescent City by midnight. They’d have been late, but with a head start on the next day’s drive to Mendocino.
Why didn’t they cancel? Two possibilities. One might be that they both really wanted to see the Oregon coast in the morning. More likely is that TuTuTun, like many luxury resorts, has a two-week cancellation policy. The bottom line may well be that, on the night of Nov. 25, 2006, James and Kati Kim were penny-wise and pound foolish, losing one life and putting three others at grave risk.
By the way, absent any other news this really should be the last of it from me. The speculation + the comments about the evident rift between Kati Kim and her father-in-law were the final loose ends. I plan to move on now.
This has gotten a little strange.
48- Maggie, Thank you for your kind words, it makes me feel a little more comfortable amongst a close knit crowd of people who (for the most part) want to make things better in the future.
57- RRR78- I agree with you to a point and it surely does seem like people on here are still hashing out points that were debated over and over again long ago. There are many things we don’t know and some we never will and it wouldn’t matter if we did. I still think there are questions we could answer without malicious finger pointing. I do realize there are few as close to this as you and I thank you for your service, information, and concern about this. You, Sara R., or anyone else personally involved didn’t have to share your experiences on Joe’s blog and I am thankful to you for that.
you know whats cool? Maggie, paul, jocosar, RRR, katis Dad, joy, I know youre lurking glenn, and of course Joe, are all still here checking in and reading. I am glad to see that. I am interested in finding out where the progress is on an “internet resource” group for SAR. Whats up with that? where has that headed?
by the way, side comment on being lost: my mom and I were a bit “lost” on a road trip Monday. My father called to check on us and he said, “everyone knows that when you think youre lost you really just havent gone far enough…. dont turn around, youre probably almost there.”
That struck me as a common mentality and probably, in the some cases, a dangerous thought.
Its probably mostly true however.
And having confidence in going forward is better than constant indecision as to whether one should turn around or not. Even if that confidence is misplaced.
Why do you want only part of the story to be told, Mr. Hunkins?
Charles, I can only give you a single clue of two words, and after that I can speak of this no more:
R-O-S-W-E-L-L 1947
We’ve never argued that the Kims were done in by aliens. I’ve always figured that was more likely from someone else here, Joe. I mean, if the Kims didn’t do anything wrong and the SAR people didn’t do anything wrong but someone still died, who else does it leave but aliens?
I don’t know about aliens but geomagnetic activity may have played a role. Nancy mentioned that in her #9:929. Here is an excerpt:
“…In addition to the terrestrial weather problems of late November, the sun became active. The sun is at the minimum period of it’s eleven year cycle, but activity increased at the end of November. NOAA’s Space Environment Laboratory website shows geomagnetic storming for much of the period
of November 30th-December 1st. …Micheal Persinger has published many articles regarding the effects of geomag on human behavior…”
I Beg of You All:
Do. Not. Feed. @(#*&(*!&!!! Trolls.
Tommo I’ve known you too long. I can actually *hear* you saying that in my head dude!
Can’t we just have HappyNet back?
http://www.kibo.com/kibopost/happynet_94.html
“Bozos abound.” Plus ca change…
Speaking of the internet, something funny is going on. Suddenly, people are in an unexplained silly mood, everywhere! If only it could last……
I know the convo is coming to a close, but I thought you guys might be interested in this perspective on Spencer Kim (which I don’t think has been posted here, pardon me if it is duplicative!)
http://news.asianweek.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=ec3fec29b45acac5e87bbfe310186503&this_category_id=172
“Survival, in real life, has very little to do with luck…” the website says,, where I just took this “fun and games” survival test: http://www.fieldandstream.com/fieldstream/quizes/lost/lost.html . I didn’t do very well. I was admonished: “you’d get lost on the back nine of a golf course”!
After lurking here for the past 2 months, it seems this blog is winding down, so I thought I would go ahead & leave a comment.
It is just amazing that in this story, literally EVERY major player directly involved has posted on this blog. One thing that reading 10,000 or so posts has reiterated to me is that we are all human. We make mistakes. We feel badly about it. Often we try to justify actions and decisions that, in hindsight, were not the best.
The Kims made decisions which were not the best. Those bad decisions should not have cost James’ life, but reality can sometimes be especially cruel.
Humans can also be cruel and judgmental. Reading the vitriolic criticism in posts by Pac & Charles makes me glad that my fate will never be in their hands. They did have some decent points, but the enthusiasm of their animosity suggests to me that they need to take up jogging or something to ease the depth of their negative emotions.
Humans can also be incredibly giving and strong. John Rachor saved 3 lives. Kati & the girls would almost certainly be dead if not for his continued efforts. For every time a John Rachor finds someone, there were dozens or even hundreds of times when valiant efforts were made with little fanfare and to no avail. If I am ever in Southeast Oregon, I will eat at Burger King.
Finally, I am humbled by the posts left by Kati’s Dad. His intelligence and love for his family come through clearly. As was noted before, his classiness is an example for us all. Kati is lucky to have him for a father.
Thanks to JoeDuck for hosting this, and to all the key people and contributors. Whatever else you think of Sara R., if she hadn’t started posting here, it’s likely most of the others would not have joined. Regardless of any procedural changes or SAR improvements which may or may not originate from this blog, it has undoubtedly been therapeutic for those directly involved to have a place to share thoughts and feelings about what happened. And it has given thousands of us with no direct involvement a way to touch the emotions of the situation; Lord, forgive us our voyeurism.
And if Kati Kim herself should happen to check out this blog, know that many warm thoughts and prayers have been sent your way the last two months. Your time with James was tragically cut short, but your yelp reviews reveal a very loving relationship, the kind about which we all dream. I hope your healing continues and that life someday becomes manageable again.
So well put William C. We are, for better or worse, all humans.
52/ paulj…there were strong weather warnings that week-end. I heard Mike Donahue, from KOIN-TV (channel 6 in Portland), mention at least on a couple of newscasts that anyone traveling in western Oregon should try to do so on
Saturday rather than Sunday. The concern in his voice was unusual, I thought, which is why I remember that forecast.
I hope that it may one day be possible to get weather warnings while driving I-5, such as those available on the coast, over a car radio.
72/ Kip…Not sure I understand your linking my message with anything regarding aliens, unless you’re referring
to Micheal Persinger’s work regarding TST and UFO sightings.
Is that correct? If so…have you read Dr. Persinger’s TST
work? Or his work regarding sensed presence? I find his
work one of the most reasonable explanations I have ever read for these kind of experiences. I realize his work is very controversial.
Best thoughts to all,
Nancy
Nancy, I’m sorry if what I said [72] inferred anything other than the appreciation I have for your 9-929 comment. I was referring only to what you had to say about the effects of sun spots and geomagnetic activity possibly influencing human behavior.
I check http://www.n3kl.org/sun/images/kpstatus.gif periodically for the status of current geomagnetic activity. Sometimes gives me a heads up of unusual stock / financial markets activity. I trade these markets, any edge can help. Interestingly (to me at least!) the bond market topped on Dec 1. Also was a crisis peak for the Kims. Coincidentally(?) the geomagnetic reading for that day was “storm”..
Well I’ll stop by to say that I still lurk here on occasion. My internet service was down for a few days. When I come back I find John Rachor was here! Joe Duck this is a great site!
With all due respect, William C., I am not the one whose judgment you’d need to fear. I have never gotten someone killed through my negligence. That honor goes to James and Kati Kim, Sara Rubrecht and Jason Stanton. Cruel? The truth has a way of being cruel. Judgmental? Doctor William, heal thyself.
84/Snarls: Would that we could all be as perfect as you Snarls.
(84) Volleyball you can’t afford the respect that would be due William C. or anybody else that is posting here.
Your perspective is truly vile and beyond words.
We heard about your elixir and nobody is buying it. Take your sideshow somewhere else. The story has been told and no matter how hard you try to mold into something that you want it just isn’t going to fly.
As they say in these parts…that dog just won’t hunt.
82/ Thank you Kip. I was so nervous when I made the post
about geomag and Dr. Persinger’s work. Your comments mean a lot to me.
I’ll be away all day, but wanted to mention Edward Dewey’s work on cycles. Ray Tomes has a Yahoo group and website
devoted to cycles…including financial cycles.
Thank you again for taking the time to respond.
Warmest thoughts,
Nancy
Tara wrote: I am interested in finding out where the progress is on an “internet resource” group for SAR. What’s up with that? where has that headed?
Tara! You want something *useful* to come out of all this commentary? Good idea!
Glenn’s been working on a database application that’ll assist SAR with info processing, and I’ve been procrastinating on setting up the DangerData.com blog with a bunch of cases.
Part of the challenge for me is all that I have learned through several missing person cases I ran on this blog - David Boone in California, Stanford Missing Student, Missing guy on Rogue River. The Kim case was *extremely* unique in that the word was out very fast and widely, and the interest level was global. Even in that case it was not clear that online information was ultimately of much if any help in finding them, and the media frenzy probably got in the way of the SAR effort.
The huge interest and potential info helpers will not be the case with other missing people so I’m not even clear blog participants, as initial “outsiders”, will be able to gather enough info quickly enough to be able to help.
But - I’m not giving up on the concept yet and like any project you need to experiment a lot, follow success, and zap errors. That can take a long time.
I will try harder to get that blog going and see what evolves, and I think Glenn is cooking up an application that will be of more direct help to SAR.
(88) Joe, Tara,
Tara I missed your post. Thanks for the summary Joe.
Currently I have invested in some dedicated hardware and software licenses to get a testing area established. The first work effort will be a survey that is sent any of the people interested in providing input.
I am sure the results of the first survey will lead to additional surveys and discussions. The collection of this information is going to need to be structured so that it can be actionable.
We will rely heavily on opinion and input from SAR members and of course Sara R. and RRR will be providing input and I am assuming they will enlist others to provide input.
Once we take all of that information I will adjust the initial database design (it is like shooting in the dark!) that I have created and expand it to handle the relationships of data that we will want to bring together to provide a “dashboard” type capability for SAR.
Included in that dashboard will be volunteer lists, ability to request volunteer assistance, data crunching, etc…
We will initially focus on providing an interface for SAR and registered volunteers to work together in-line with Internet based resources.
Another angle of the SAR assistance site will be to have a “directory” of readily available experts that SAR can tap into quickly to get questions answered, etc.
Lastly, a section for the affected families will be there to correspond with SAR members and other volunteers - don’t worry certain elements will not be allowed to harass the family.
The primary goals include:
Establish network of experts that SAR can reliably contact and interact with.
Provide “job jar” to identify SAR or family requests that can be distributed through the Internet to registered volunteers.
Create searchable thread of conversations to allow LE and SAR to research and review to help in future searches.
Create repository of key SAR related data points that can be used in future searches (history repeats itself).
Long-term potential is a repository to allow SAR searchers, volunteers a place to fill out their daily diary of events that can be quickly assembled into a hierarchy to highlight key data points that could be overlooked in the volume of information. This could also lead to a consistent format of reporting diary items into an overall specific search volume compiled of all the data points and diary entries.
The goal of the SAR assist site is not to replace Blogs. Open conversation should continue in Blog form, if anything it helps people deal with the situation and hopefully move on afterward.
Another project is an addition to the Danger database that will allow people to produce a Google Map of their planned route with all the “memorial” and danger points pinned to the map with interactive summary and details regarding potential danger.
(88) Joe another point on the short nature of the searches. I think it would be useful to have a repository that could arrange all of the search diaries (even the short searches) so that when a SAR effort is intiated a complete dossie of the area in regard to past SAR efforts, or like cases can be quickly assembled in report form with key priorities listed along with what were the critical data points in past efforts. (i.e. cellphone towers, tide charts, river level, etc).
glenn, it would seem that you pass a harsh judgment on the judgmental. Yourself excepted, naturally.
Glenn thanks for expanding on things - I like these concepts a lot!
(91) Hey Chucky, actually I am toughest on myself. Yes I was very judgmental in the beginning about this - but after I was enlightened, got the facts and I changed my position. I was wrong on my initial assumptions about SAR. I have been corrected and quite happy that I received an education in the process. Blog are meant to be about growing and expanding ones’ knowledge of the subject matter and an individual’s participation is the way that person can package up the information so they specifically learn from it.
Also Joe’s blog has introduced me to many amazing people and I will be forever grateful for that. That is the whole point isn’t it? Get a bunch of people together to discuss their opinions and find a place where most can meet and all learn something from it…other just want this to be a bully pulpit.
Yourself and the others cut from your cloth are called detractors - you want to deflect the discussion from its purpose and focus it on your agenda - ultimately they are all vetted out and people for most part will ignore your propaganda some occasionally will get sucked into your “relevant” points but we all know they are only a plant to trick people into talking to you. That is where your approach ultimately fails because people eventually see through your veiled posts.
There are a lot of people here really trying to make something good out of this horrible situation and it is a shame that you continue to beat your dead horse – just go bury it and move on.
glenn, you and others are upset that we’ve held James and Kati Kim primarily responsible for James Kim’s death, named Sara Rubrecht and Jason Stanton as contributing to it and stated that we do not believe Kati Kim’s account of the events. You and many others here believe it is cruel to tell the truth; we think it’s cruel not to.
Your objections have nothing to do with any lack of positive recommendations on our part. How can they, when our website is the only one to publish a list of specific positive recommendations aimed at reducing the likelihood of a similar tragedy?
(94) Charles see post (57) Dr. Flemming said it best and I think across the board here he has just a tad more credibility than you do on this subject. Tad is probably the biggest understatement of the year.
Please refer back to your post (65) - is this just another example of your misleading posts?
Now…poof, be gone!
James Gray, a pioneer of computing, is missing off California (or possibly even Oregon) coast:
http://joeduck.wordpress.com/2007/01/31/jim-gray-computing-pioneer-missing-at-sea-off-california-coast/
I’ve written Scott who had some Google contacts. Tom was wondering if we might use high rez satellite imagery, combined with some course projections, to find the boat at sea.
glenn, I really don’t have any new comments to make. But I will at least attempt to defend myself when personally attacked by those who object to the making of judgments that they disagree with. It’s a little judgmental, wouldn’t you say?
(97) Charles the bottom line is I just find you truly boring. That’s all, you’re just boring.
98/Glenn - Careful, he might sue you for telling the truth.
I wonder if there aren’t already various SAR information repositories. For example, how many SAR volunteers does Sara coordinate already? She must have on file records for many years of SAR missions. The volunteers have to go through various forms of training and certification.
One of the teams involved in the Windy Ck search was Eugene Mountain Rescue. Besides their Lane County links, they are a part of the Mountain Rescue Association. I count 7 groups on the Lane Co Sheriff’s SAR page. Just a quick web browse shows that there already is a lot of SAR networking going on.
There is even a SAR textbook, Fundamentals of Search and Rescue published by NASAR.
http://www.nasar.org/garmin/product_info.php?products_id=307&osCsid=02fec03ca544b1e45a4ed7e3452bfeb9
A glance at the contents of this book shows me that there is a lot more to SAR than I ever imagined.
paulj
glenn, it’s better to be boring than negligent, dishonest or hypocritical.
Things which need ‘fixed’ - corrections, improved upon etc. DON’T get fixed when after the initial attention wears off people just forget, give it up and move on.
Also, those who state that people should just give it up and move on are usually those who can stand the least scrunity.
I have yet to see a response to my question of what has changed other than a few afore mentioned vests?
Frances, your [102] comment brought to mind a biggy… if the attitudes of offending officials remain unchanged can we not sometime expect a repeat of a similar situation whereby an informed, knowledgeable private citizen volunteering critical information is summarily repelled as a nuisance?
103. Kip, Percisely you entire statment but emphasis upon “if the attitudes of offending officals remain unchanged can we no sometime expect a repeat of a similar situtation”
Frances and Kip, “the attitudes of offending officials” had absolutely nothing to do with the Kim tragedy. James Kim died as the result of simple negligence, primarily on his own and his wife’s part.
The best way to reduce that is to educate travelers about the need to plan their trips, pay attention to warnings and not to place too much reliance on technology. That’s what our site long ago suggested.
The negligence of Sara Rubrecht and Jason Stanton also contributed to the death. I’m not sure what can be done to prevent a reoccurence. To me, it was a classic one-off mistake on their part. By contrast, the Kims’ negligence consisted of a number of failure points, any of which might have been accessed by a public education effort.
This is a prime example of why it is necessary to correctly assign responsibility (a/k/a “blame”) when things like this happen. It’s not cruel to do so; rather, if you actually want to take lessons and apply them in hopes of preventing a repetition of the events, you must accurately understand the original events and their causes.
It is the lack of understanding, and indeed the hostility toward understanding, displayed on this site that I find very odd. You are all educated people, but for some reason you regard the truth as taboo in this case. I suggest that, as part of your process of examination, you examine why you don’t want to face the truth in the Kim case.
Charles Wilson:
By the way, absent any other news this really should be the last of it from me.
Dude, how many times now have you written that you’ve written your last comment here?
Charles:
… examine why you don’t want to face the truth in the Kim case.
I thought I explained this clearly to you earlier:
R-O-S-W-E-L-L 1947 
Snarls/105: You are exceedingly tiresome & redundant. Very few here have alledged that the Kim’s did not share some culpability for their fate. I have stated this before, but you keep ignoring that fact.
No less a figure than Kati’s dad said in post 880/p9 that he agreed with the last line of the Snarls post 867, which read: “The Kims bear the primary responsibility for the fate that befell James Kim and the near death of the other members of the family.”
The issue for many of the posters here is we don’t believe, as you do Snarl’s, that their mistake occurred in a vacuum or without extenuating circumstances. The Kim’s were far from the 1st people to misunderstand the dangers of that road. Mapper, who is a map EXPERT (which you - Snarls - are not) has pointed out the numerous problems with the ODOT map. The glaring deficiencies of the signage on the road have been expounded on repeatedly and in-depth. No less than John James attested to the numerous parties he has run into near his lodge who made similar navigational mistakes. You want to pin 200% of the blame on the Kim’s, whereas most here feel otherwise, that it is hardly that clear cut.
What is most comical is you insist on repeating the same message over and over and over again regardless of what or how anyone here responds. Even when people agree with you you are argumentative. You keep saying you are leaving, but you never do. You built a huge site to discuss YOUR views, but you post here as much or more as you do there.
Fine, keep beating your stubborn, hollow head into a brick wall and I’ll just lurk and laugh at your inane folly! You’ve succeeded only in reinforcing peoples determination to never become as narrow-minded and unempathetic as you clearly are.
102/Frances: Unless I am mistaken quite a bit is in the process of being changed. Signage issues are being worked on per earlier comments from several posters, with additional & clearer signs scheduled to go up this Spring.
The Governor appointed the 15 members to his task force yesterday:
http://www.oregonlive.com/oregonian/stories/index.ssf?/base/news/1170309422288490.xml&coll=7
I think it is safe to assume they will have several specific recommendations for the legislature to consider and implement.
Changes after an event like this take time, that is the nature of government, but they are definitely in the works.
But Paul/107, the signs on the road were not an issue for the Kims. They knew where they were going, and they departed from the map route on purpose.
Mapper’s comments were perhaps academically useful, but she didn’t place them in the context of highway maps in general. In other words, how are other official state maps better or worse than Oregon’s? Maybe all highway maps fail to meet her standards? As I read the ODOT map, it was clear that the Kims’ route was in the lowest category of paved road. It bore a specific warning, and the map showed a 5,000 foot peak right next to the road. Additionally, once the Kims were on that road it wasn’t up to the map to tell them it was dangerous.
As for repetition of a message, I plead guilty. Others should too. There are nearly 10,000 comments here. Surely you aren’t arguing that I am the only one making the same tired points. Right, Paul?
While there are strong feelings here and there for the most part is because people care about various issues, but I don’t believe there are truly any hard feelings.
RE: Helping with Bear Camp sign improvements: I hadn’t heard back from BLM email and just phoned Jim Roper to ask about helping with the new signage and also where people can send a donation of money.
(107) Paul the reason Volleyball keeps doing this is he is marketing his solution! It should be obvious to everyone here - he is in this to make money - somehow, somewhere.
He has invented a new form of SPAM but on a blog!!!
I see CW thinks that signage wasn’t an issue for the Kims, but perhaps he could think outside the box a bit and consider the many people who took the wrong turn and were redirected to the correct route by John James and his family. And understand that clear signage on both roads at the fork may have indeed caused the Kims to turn completely around rather than go that way.
Any of the persons redirected by the James family could have ended up in the same dire situation as the Kims, and there were also others found by SAR in earlier incidents.
And now it appears that CW himself is lost, here on Joe Duck’s blog. He keeps saying he’s leaving, but keeps turning up repeatedly.
(113) Madeleine…your last line - now that was funny! LOL
I know that we will incur the wrath of Tommo for feeding the critters, but sometimes it’s hard to resist; they blather on and on, making the same inane accusations.
What I want to know is why nobody wants to discuss this ROSWELL incident?!??!! It is obvious to my swollen cranium that this is DIRECTLY related to so many of these recent, “tragic” incidents! And yet everyone does their best to shift attention away from 1947 to volleyballs. VOLLEYBALLS! Volleyballs have nothing to do with anything except playing volleyball, and some silly movie…
Okay. Maybe I have had too much Dew.
And what I really want to know is: how does a 40-foot sailboat disappear without a trace?
Maybe I have had too much Dew
Only theoretically possible, dew-d! Cheers!
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/the-ultimate-stoner-gadget-handson-the-volcano-herb-vaporizer-232962.php
Finally something that will help everyone understand Volleyball! I knew it had to exist we just had to find it.
116. - LOL, dew-d
And what I really want to know is: how does a 40-foot sailboat disappear without a trace?
Time warp?
116 & 119/Tharwood & Gayle: Obviously the C&C 40 was beamed aboard by our friends from Roswell. They were having some onboard trouble with their computers and needed an expert. He will be returned shortly with absolutely no memory of what happened to him.
121 - Ah, the good old unexplained lapse of time. That explains everything.
121- see I had one right there… I meant 120
121: His boat will reappear off Gold Beach. He will claim that is where he was headed all along & that solar flares interfered with his efforts to call home. He will have memories of having made the voyage, but when pressed for details will suddenly become vague and evasive.
http://www.moviesoundclips.net/tv1/xfiles/xfilestheme.wav
(122) Gayle I see you just committed a 2-11 in regard to the 121 which was re