Boy Scout who survived tornado at Iowa camp visits grandparents in Cambria

A tornado in Iowa that killed four of his fellow Boy Scouts tested 14-year-old Hal Emas’ emergency survival skills

Leah Etling

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The Boy Scouts motto, “Be prepared,” was never so relevant to 14- year-old Hal Emas as the night a killer tornado struck the Iowa camp where his troop was attending a leadership conference.

Emas is an easygoing teen with a big appetite and a ready smile. This month, he is visiting his grandparents, Marlene and Jerry Bernstein, in Cambria as part of his summer vacation.

Despite being besieged with media inquiries, from names including Greta Van Susteren of Fox News and reporters from USA Today and The New York Times, Emas was willing to share his story with Tribune readers.

It was his 14th interview, he said, and he was rather tired of talking about the night of June 11.

“At first I thought it was pretty cool, but after a while, it got really, really old,” said Emas, who enjoys collecting moonstones on the beach in front of his grandparents’ home.

Four Scouts died and 48 were injured when the tornado touched down near Blencoe, Iowa. Emas, who grabbed a table while the tornado destroyed the shelter where the Scouts had gone to try to be safe from the storm, escaped with just a scratch.

On his way to becoming an Eagle Scout, Emas has only three more merit badges to earn. He will begin his Eagle project, cleaning up a cemetery near his home in Omaha, Neb., later this summer.

The disaster preparedness exercise the Scouts had done the day before the tornado helped them handle the ordeal, he said. One of the Scouts was sent into their camp with a fake laceration injury, and they had to react.

“Everybody was freaking out because they thought it was real. And the leaders said, ‘You need to stay calm because panicking doesn’t help anything.’ ”

The tornado experience won’t keep him from being a Scout, he said.

“It will make me more wary of going to camp — much, much, much more wary,” he said. He won’t return to the Iowa camp until new tornado shelters are in place, he said.

In the immediate aftermath of the tornado, Emas helped a fellow Scout who had a large boulder on his chest, he said.

“I kept him calm by talking to him,” Emas said. The boy survived with a collapsed lung and other injuries.

Emas isn’t sure how the experience will affect him. He’ll be a freshman at Central High School in Omaha in the fall. He doesn’t expect new classmates to know who he is or what he survived.

“A lot of people will probably forget about it by then, though. Because a lot of people forget about tornadoes,” he said.