If the National Boy Scout Jamboree is jinxed, it certainly is hard to tell.
Cars and buses full of visitors clamoring to get into the 10-day camp-out back up outside the Army base. Inside, on a central road lined with boys lapping up lassoing and knife throwing activities, loudspeakers blast the Village People, and Scouts spontaneously shoot out their arms to form dozens of Y’s and M’s and C’s and A’s.
After a tragic and rocky start — four Alaska Scout leaders were electrocuted Monday, searing heat sickened more than 300 participants Wednesday and a visit by President Bush was postponed twice — Scouts and their masters are positively gushing about the event.
“Everybody talks about utopia. This is the closest thing to it,” said Garrett Vogel, 19, a third assistant Scoutmaster from Richmond, Va., who, as one of the heat-exhausted taken to a hospital Wednesday, might have reason to be jaded.
Most agree the Jamboree’s fun has far overshadowed its gloom. Nearly 32,000 Scouts are learning to sail, making friends and generally having an irrepressible blast.
If news reports have made the event seem star-crossed, grumble some Scout leaders, it’s partly because of decisions by event officials.
Monday, officials acknowledged a North Carolina man, 57, died of a heart attack the day before, but only when pressed by reporters. And they have offered few details about the fatal electrical accident, which happened when the pole of a tent being raised touched an overhead power line.
Thursday, officials apologized for a comment by Gregg Shields, a Boy Scouts spokesman. Shields had suggested to the Associated Press that the Alaska leaders might not have followed Scout teachings that warn against pitching tents under trees or power lines.
The next day, Bill Haines, head of the Western Alaska Council, issued a statement providing more information on what led to the accident. It occurred, he said, after two contractors hired to erect two dining tents asked the Scout leaders for help with the second one.
Creating more griping among Scout leaders was the decision to forge ahead with a kickoff arena show Wednesday night, even after temperatures surged. Some Scouts stayed away, but thousands, clad in full uniform, were marched three hours before showtime to the arena, where they waited under a blazing sun. More than 300 Scouts and others were treated for heat exhaustion.
There was drinking water in the arena, “but by then it was too late,” said Pete Galli, a volunteer from Fort Myers, who was on the Jamboree’s ice distribution team. “They should have called it off long before it got to that point.”
Scout officials called off the show after Bush canceled because of poor weather. He rescheduled for the next night, but Scout and Army officials canceled that one to give Scouts, and an overworked medical staff, time to recover. Bush is expected to speak tonight.
Scout officials will not say they have regrets. But they will, as always, carefully review the Jamboree’s problems, Scouts spokeswoman Renee L. Fairrer said.
“Certainly, with any large project … you are going to have areas where you say, ‘I could have done this’ and ‘I should have done this,'” she said.
The Jamboree is a massive and meticulously planned wonderland where Scouts want for nothing, save a warm shower. A lake has been stocked with 20,000 fish for their casting pleasure. Food kiosks have been strategically located in a pattern to ensure the quick feeding of hungry teen-agers. Opportunities to earn merit badges abound.
The scouting spirit has showed through. As more and more Scouts and adults grew ill at the arena show, teen-agers handing out water from a truck, all members of a co-ed scouting group called Venturers, sprang into action. They whisked people into the cooled truck and summoned their leader, physician Mike Barrett, and other medical personnel. Soon, patients were getting intravenous fluids.
The youths “turned a tractor-trailer water unit into a second medical tent,” Barrett said. “We were very proud of them.
