Posted on 12/21/2006 8:12:28 AM PST by surfer
Really? The wilderness is sure as hell where they found his body.
Did they or did they not drive past several signs that reported snowdrifts in winter and move boulders out of the way to continue their journey? They drove 22 miles on a winding logging road at 2am with their tiny children in the car. Rather than turn around and take their intended route, they selected a minor side road that was crookeder than a worm on a griddle as the snow was coming down. That's just ignorant and negligent as hell on several levels. Stop making excuses for them.
"... Some of the maps say the road is closed in the winter - last time I checked winter starts tomorrow."
Last time I checked, intelligent people don't think of inclement weather in chronological terms.
"Honey, those signs we passed say 'Closed in Winter'. The snow is coming down and it's 2am already. Do you think it's safe?"
"Sure, sweetums! My PalmPilot's calendar software says that Winter doesn't even start for two more weeks! You stay in the car while I move these indian road markings out of the way that tell me it's safe to continue!".
I wouldn't even drive off a major highway in a snowstorm, and that's if I decided to drive through a snowstorm at all.
Rhetorical questions? Sara bad, Kim good.
Point is...they were not planning on being in the wilderness. Yes everyone should prepare as much as possible for any trip in or around the winter time especially near mountains. We all get that.
Last time I checked with several locals in the area they say over and over again people get lost in that same area all of the time regardless of how intelligent they are.
Do you stop driving when it snows? At the time they didn't know it was going to be a major snowstorm - it was raining when they were on the highway...
So let me get this straight in a snowstorm you wouldn't leave a major highway? How do you get back home when it snows? Do you live directly on a highway? Maybe you purchased an old Howard Johnsons or something? Wake up - they thought they were going on a good roads and on a good safe route.
What would you have advised people back in the days of Rt 66? It isn't a major highway don't go anywhere.
It is really a shame that people want to place all of the blame on the Kim's! Yes they made mistakes and that family has paid a terrible price.
Get the facts about this situation before you make callous statements about their judgement, etc...you have no idea why they made the decisions they made...you have no idea what decisions you would have made in their same position - it is impossible because you weren't there.
As far as this post - it is about the decisions by someone named Sarah Rubrecht (seen it as Sara as well) and how it adversely affected the efforts of SAR. Discuss the truth about her ability and try not to deflect to a helpless dead man.
Can you please answer the question?
Would you want Sarah Rubrecht coordinating the SAR efforts involving one of your loved ones?
Facts: Sara messed up, Kim DEAD.
Gads, you would think this was Colorado.
Maybe she was carsick again.
I live in Josephine County, and believe me, it's one bunged-up, incompetent county.
Last year it was revealed that county managers, on their first year of employment, were all given NINE WEEKS paid vacation, with the right to sell half the weeks back to the county.
Meanwhile, the county is in such dire financial straits that the county library is only open for a few hours each day (which they do to blackmail us, in my opinion.)
I could go on and on, but I gotta get t'work!
Ed
It is ALWAYS someone else's fault!
It doesn't matter WHO does WHAT..... WHEN.......it is NOT the fault of the person doing it, it is for a fact, ANOTHER persons fault!!
The ME generation meets the NOT MY FAULT culture!
I agree. (no need to beat on me over this though)
It's official - James Kim made a mistake - he DIED
It's official - Sara Rebrecht made a mistake - STILL HAS HER JOB.
How can anyone think anyone "else" is getting blamed here? This is about incompetence at best, criminal negligence at worst.
Nobody is discussing shifting blame from James Kim - I keep having to repeat this - he paid for his mistake - or did you forget that fact?
Sara R...needs to be held accountable for her terrible mistakes.
well, we can't hold everyone accountable for thier mistakes can we? /s (BTW, I'm agreeing with you on this.) :-)
Sorry if it was over the top...there have several of us very close to this effort and the more information we find out about the more upsetting it becomes.
A lot of the locals, etc all agree the problems in Josephine County need to be corrected and it has been a mess up there for years and nothing has been done. Hopefully all of this attention will drive change (heck that is what FR is all about!)
Somebody's life may depend on it and it could be someone we know next time.
BTW...thanks for challenging the position though. Both sides need to be discussed so the facts bubble to the top. I am just a little intense over this one. :)
That list is way too long for sure. If you really dig into this the Sara R. situation is only the tip of the iceberg over there. Anderson the UnderSheriff (you may remember him crying on tv) is a real piece of work as well.
I think those two share the majority of the mistakes that were made with this. Those mistakes were not like math errors either - Anderson refused to take a phone call on the weekend because he was watching football!!! Unbelievable.
The rotten apples need to be removed from an otherwise good bunch. We depend on these people to do their job professionally - taxpayers pay their salaries.
Hi Ed,
I have heard from several locals similar stories. Hopefully the national attention this is getting will help create change that will ultimately clean up things for you guys...
Some of the things I have heard and read are just unbelievable.
There's been a lot of reporting on the Edge Wireless aspect of the story, and most of it has refrained from leaping to the conclusions this one has. What Edge was able to determine is that they were likely to be somewhere in a wedge-shaped twenty mile long, by twenty mile wide area. Then, looking at topo maps of the area, they made some guesses regarding those locations where signals that reached that particular tower might have originated. One of those areas was Bear Creek Road, which was in the process of being searched by that time.
But... remember... the Kims were something like twenty miles down a logging road from Bear Creek.
It's easy, in hindsight, to say everyone should have dropped everything and pursued the Edge lead, but it still wouldn't have produced the Kims, and if they had been in some other area they would have been abandoned in order to chase a hunch.
This is all woulda-coulda-shoulda stuff, it helps reporters fill their copy quota, but it provides no information that would be useful to see that the next incident is more successful than this one was.
When you combine this lead with two others from locals (both of which had solid evidence a car was up there) and they were reported on Friday...you would think someone who take that pretty seriously.
According to several local they were quite surprised that the area and spur roads weren't completely checked right away. It is the first place they would have looked.
And you know...no one gets lost on Bear Camp Rd, they get lost on the spur roads.
It seems to me that Sara R. was putting her efforts in following a lead supplied to her through her husband from an employee of his - the employee reported he had seen the car in a different place.
If these three leads were followed they would have definitely led to the Kim's...because that is exactly what happened. The Burger King owner followed up on his information and that of Black Bar Lodge owners and ultimately found the Kim's. He waited to start searching until Sunday because he was told by SAR coordination that the Bear Camp Rd and complete area was thoroughly searched (another big blunder). It was his own intuition that finally got to him on Sunday and he went and searched...thank god for that. On Sunday he reported in he saw human tracks on the road...Sara R. and Anderson ignored that as well!!! Anderson was too busy watching football.
All Sara R. had to do was call in FLIR Friday and Saturday night...one phone call.
If you really look at all the facts...you should see that if they did follow up on these multiple leads with solid evidence that it would have at a minimum increases the odds of James Kim surviving.
Maybe she was hungover...you know all the stress and all!
Hope her family has a nice Christmas!
Merry Christmas!
Same to you and a Happy New Year!
Can I rub your belly for good luck? :)
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