Army helicopters hover above Lake Belton on June 3, 2016, searching for four missing soldiers from the U.S Army's Fort Hood who were swept away in a low water crossing during training.(Photo: Rodolfo Gonzalez, Austin American-Statesman, AP)
Searchers have recovered the last four bodies from among nine soldiers who drowned when their training vehicle was<span style="color: Red;">*</span>swept away in a flood at Fort Hood Army Base in<span style="color: Red;">*</span>central Texas.
The bodies were found Friday downstream from where their 2 ½-ton truck, known as a Light Medium Tactical Vehicle, overturned on Owl Creek on Thursday, according to base<span style="color: Red;">*</span>spokesman Tyler Broadway.
He said 12<span style="color: Red;">*</span>soldiers were on board the vehicle when it overturned while driving along a dirt road parallel to a paved road that the base had closed because of the risk of flooding.
The dirt road near Owl Creek was not known to have been overrun with water before, according to Fort Hood spokesman Chris Haug, who added that the soldiers “regularly pass through weather conditions like this.”
Two bodies were found in the vehicle shortly after the accident and three others were found downstream hours later.
Three soldiers who were rescued from the raging<span style="color: Red;">*</span>waters were released Friday from Fort Hood’s hospital, base officials said Friday evening, according to the Associated Press.
Crews<span style="color: Red;">*</span>used helicopters, boats and heavy trucks to search the 20-mile creek, which winds through heavily wooded terrain on the 340-square-mile post, one of the nation's largest.
Widespread flooding has been<span style="color: Red;">*</span>reported across Texas because of severe storms and heavy rain, some falling at the rate of 3 inches an hour, that have slammed the state in recent days. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared a state of disaster across 31 counties.
Jeff Mincy, of the Coryell County EMS, said there was no sign of the truck when he arrived at the scene of the accident at Owl Creek on Thursday morning.
“It was flowing pretty fast,” Mincy
tells the Killeen Daily Herald. “I can’t estimate how fast it was flowing, but it was faster than I would have felt comfortable putting anything into the water. When we did find the vehicle, we could see the tires sticking up out of the water, so in that position where the vehicle settled, it had to have been about 8 feet deep."
Speaking Friday in Singapore, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter expressed condolences to the families of those killed at Fort Hood. He said<span style="color: Red;">*</span>once investigations into those deaths are complete the military will take actions designed to prevent such incidents. The name of the victims have not been released.
The Combat Readiness Center’s experts will examine the scene of the Fort Hood accident, 70 miles north of Austin, collecting evidence on environmental, human and material factors and interviewing survivors and others involved with the fatal training. They will then compile a report and send it to the commanding unit. After 90 days, the report becomes public record.
Personnel from the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, the lead investigators of deaths on military installations, are also reviewing the Fort Hood deaths, although spokesman Christopher Grey said there is no evidence yet of criminal activity.
“The military is inherently dangerous business and training incidents do happen,” Grey said, according to the AP.
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