From STAFF and WIRE REPORTS
The four men electrocuted while pitching a dining tent at the Boy Scout Jamboree had ignored Scouting teachings by putting the tent under a power line, a spokesman said yesterday.
The Scout leaders also had taken the "somewhat unusual" step of hiring a contractor to help with the task, Scouts spokesman Gregg Shields said.
"Boy Scouts are taught not to put their tents under trees or under power lines. I don't know what happened in that case," Shields said.
The four leaders killed Monday were to be remembered yesterday at a memorial to be attended by President Bush, but the event was canceled because of approaching thunderstorms.
Some Scouts witnessed the deaths of the leaders as the large pole at the center of a big, white dining tent came into contact with power lines. Screams rang out as the tent caught fire and the men burned.
An investigation into the accident, which injured another Scout leader and two adult contractors, is incomplete.
While power lines crisscross the jamboree's 7,000 acres, the leaders of Western Alaskan Troops 711 and 713 had ample room to erect a tent out of range of overhanging limbs and power lines.
The Jamboree is divided into subcamps, each of which is responsible for putting up a mess tent for what could be the hundreds of Scouts in their division. Shields said he did not know if Scouting has a specific policy regarding the proximity of tents to power lines.
He could not identify the contractor hired by the Alaska troop, but trucks from Tents and Events were seen at the campsite yesterday taking down tents. A man who answered the phone at Tents and Events' Fishersville office yesterday said no one from the company could comment.
The Scout leader injured in the accident, Larry Call, returned to the jamboree yesterday. Jamboree officials said he was taking in events with his 15-year-old son, Kendall, and did not want to speak to reporters.
His wife, Paula Call, told the Anchorage Daily News that a few of the Alaska Scouts had volunteered to help raise the tent. Call told the paper that her son and another boy were trying to lift the center pole into place when it became stuck.
At that point, she said, the adult leaders took over.
Because they were under the tent, they could not see the power lines above, but moments later, the pole and the wire touched.
"These men, when they were electrocuted, they were thrown to the ground," Paula Call told the Anchorage paper.
A receptionist at Larry Call's Anchorage dental practice told The Free Lance-Star yesterday that Paula Call was out of town.
Flags flew at half-staff near the shooting range yesterday as the jamboree opened to the public for the first time. Events went on as usual despite intense heat.
Cameron Ogilvie, 15, of York, Pa., said he heard of the deaths from his bus driver as he was riding back to his campsite.
"It shocked all of the boys on the bus hard. We all just got quiet," he said.
Scoutmaster Brad Mohr, 51, of Pasadena, Calif., said an announcement after the accident informed leaders not to use tent poles in excess of 6 feet.
"Sometimes you're too close to things and you can't see them, and all of a sudden you realize that you're actually [in] danger," Mohr said.
Those killed were Michael J. Shibe, 49, Mike Lacroix, 42, and Ronald H. Bitzer, 58, all of Anchorage, Alaska; and Scott Edward Powell, 57, who recently had moved from Anchorage to Perrysville, Ohio. Shibe had two sons at the jamboree and Lacroix had one.
Meghan Stapleton, a spokeswoman for Alaska Communications Systems, where victim Mike Shibe worked, said residents in Anchorage, as well as people from other parts of the country, have been asking how to help the families of the men who died.
"It's just very generous for anyone to think of these families," she said.
Donations to the families can be sent to the Scout Memorial Fund, an account that an Alaska credit union has set up to help the families.
The account number is 80487, and donations can be sent to the Denali Alaskan Federal Credit Union at 3400 LaTouche St., Anchorage, Alaska 99508. The phone number is 800/764-1123.
Staff writer Emily Battle contributed to this Associated Press report.