There won't BE a next time. The producers of this show will have to donate blood to pay off all the damages. Although in their defense, they did announce: "There's a storm coming! Run away, run away!" a few minutes before the disaster.
I seriously doubt the tons hanging on it were anywhere near 3 digits. My estimate from what I've seen and the rigging I've worked with in the past would be on the order of 10 tons (20,000#) at most. Aluminum truss is not especially heavy, canvas roof material is not that heavy, the lights are on the order of 10# each, and speakers up to 150# or so each.
Reminds me of a big tree that will come down someday, sooner or later when the wind or ice brings it down and ya don't want to be under it when it does come down. Now those cranes, the ones that look like they are a radio tower with a suspension bridge on top. I'm surprised those don't come down more often.
IMHO, about the only reason to pay out the ass for tickets, and put up with the hassles of a live show crowd, is for the shared experience of being there with pals or a significant other. In my experience, the albums usually sound better.
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You may be correct, but that would be wrong on their part. It is summer. Summer heat spawns thunderstorms. Thunderstorms can often have 70 mph winds. IMO, that would be the minimal design for anything like that. Of course, we don't know how it was engineered or if shortcuts were taken during assembly. Too many possibilities to speculate.
I can also see many lawsuits and finger pointing of blame. Sad for the people lost and their families though. They just went out for a day of fun.
A thunderstorm can generate winds much in excess of 70 mph. Also lightning and torrential downpours. Plus baseball-sized hail falling from 50,000 feet. Plus tornados. Everything that can go wrong with weather can go wrong in a thunderstorm.
Do not let your daughter marry one
The comparison was to concession tents at ground level. This stage is probably 40-50 feet high. here was nothing obstructing the wind that high. Sugarland also has a big LED screen as the back wall of the stage that they show special effects on during the show and that was a huge sail. I bet the screen went down and took all of the risers with it.
In this case, though, the actual thunderstorm itself was still 20 minutes or so away.
And they do the weirdest things. The "police" reporter went for an extended period of time during the reports of the active rescue about how bad cell service was and how the Fair should do something about it. I put on their FB about how (1). The Fairgrounds has long been notorious for lousy cell service (2). Cell service is not even remotely the responsibility of the Fair Board and (3) If he had taken any time to actually stay abreast of things he would suppose to be reporting on, he would know that it is well established that the first piece of infrastructure to go is cell phones. THey are scaled for normal use and you can't expect them to function when 18,000 try to use their phones all at once. This why they are programmed to give public safety services priority in a disaster. The other indefensible thing they did was to give some spectator kid who couldn't have been more than 25 a full 90 seconds (an eternity in TV time) to tell everyone EXACTLY what went wrong and how it should be fixed. Interesting that I have yet to see the first engineer (despite Purdue being just down the road) interviewed.
Doesn't matter; the wind gusts are often well ahead of the center of the storm.
I live in Indianapolis, about five miles due west of the Fairgrounds. I was working outdoors when the front passed through. The change was sudden and dramatic: within the space of only a couple of minutes, we went from a pleasant, sunny evening with scattered clouds and a light breeze, to near darkness with *very* high winds.
Does matter since you can't see them on radar and/or forecast them, at least according to the TV weather guys. I don't remember ever seeing what the NWS people said about it. Under this scenario the only option is cancel everything when a TS is within 20 miles.
Me, too, although marginally farther away and further north. I don't see where the weather forecast fits into this, because of what is noted above. To my mind, anyway, the only concern is what are the standards for wind resistance of the stage and did it meet them. The NEXT concern is whether the standards are enough.
From what I've seen, this was a large truss array lifted into place on a series of lift towers by chain hoists, a lot like the now disused due to accidents lift-slab construction. Guy wires radiating out from tops of the lift towers would need to be anchored where the other tents were, so difficult to do. Cross bracing between the lift towers wouldn't need space outside the footprint of the stage, but would have to be installed after the truss frame was hoisted. My speculation would be that they skipped installation of those cross braces since they hadn't had an issue the last 20 times they took that shortcut.
Come on now...... "Etch-a-sketch" art is a lot more creative and talented than rap.
Your tv station WISH TV (wishtv.com) had some of the best coverage I found on the internet. They show the actual weather radar maps just before the collapse. The storm was 12 miles away. So the wind gust was well ahead of the center of the storm.
They also made an animated computer graphic of the stage, showing the tarp come off and the way the winds pulled that tarp, which was the direction it fell. (I question if that roof is just held to the uprights by weight, and not actually fastened?). They said the tarp acted as a sail and lifted the roof before it fell. The part I dont understand is that if the tarp was able to peel off the roof, why didn't the lowest end of it release from the rigging? If that had released, the tarp would have come off entirely and possibly eliminated this whole disaster. A blowing and falling tarp would have done far less damage. If anything, it appears that those tarps should have a method to disconnect when they come loose.
------ This is not a direct response to this, but I saw a concert lately at a county fair. They had a light tower one each side of the stage, standing on the ground right in front of the stage platform. It had a horizontal bar going across just like those used at Indiana. It was only 4 feet tall when they attached the lights, then each end had a crank and two guys raised it to height above the heads of the musicians. (probably about 18 feet, since the stage itself was about
6 feet tall). At the time, I thought that's a really good setup for the workers who have to install the lights, but now I'm thinking that it has another purpose. If high winds are predicted, it only takes seconds to lower it, and can be quickly raised again after the storm.Just think of all the possiblities a system like that would have for a huge stage, especially of they had a power lift on each upright, and they were all synchronized so in the event of a storm, the whole top could be lowered....... Of course they better have a generator too, in case the power goes out....
And the tarp was already in tatters. So, would that have made it less of a sail or more sails with more lift?
They did. I was listening to the response of IFD and IMPD on the scanner (great job BTW. Just the usual minor BS--- "Control would you get in touch with someone from ladder 31 to move it so the ambulances can get through?") and one of the first things the safety officer reported was that all generators had been shut off, locked and tagged.
You're correct about it lifting first if you look at the animated computer graphic on wishtv.com. Had that tarp been able to come off completely, this would not have likely happened. That tarp lifted it.
Actually they did mention that gas explosion somewhere in the coverage I saw, but I have looked at so much coverage, that I dont recall where I saw it...... I wonder what caused that anyhow??????? It might be on the fairs own website.....
Thats the problem with fairs, they are only used one week a year and stuff goes unnoticed..... A nearby small local fair had a cattle barn building collapse from snow load a few years ago. No one knew exactly when it happened, because no one goes to the fair grounds in winter. The building had to be demolished and replaced in very short time. When the fair opened, the new building was built, but still lacked doors, windows and other unimportant stuff. But it worked fine for the cattle.
It was only a month ago when a similar stage collapsed in Ottawa Canada. That stage did not appear to be as heavy though, and no one was killed, just a few injuries. Cheap Trick was playing. There was not nearly as much media coverage on that one because no one was killed. I believe the date was July 16 or 17. There are some youtube videos available.....
The woman who filmed the collapse of that stage, (the one which we have all seen over and over), should become a news reporter. She kept filming and kept the camera steady during the whole collapse. Most people would have had that camera going in all directions. She's good, very good!!! I hope she gets some recognition for this....
WTHR found a person who had been at both the Coliseum explosion and the Sugarland fall. If I was the Fairgrounds I think I'd keep her out. The explosion was caused by a leaking cylinder of propane for a thing was being used to keep pre-popped corn hot. It went and some other stuff went sympathetic and the rest is history.
The state fairgrounds is in use throughout the year, although I think the stage is only in use during the Fair itself. I know they do other concerts during the year, but I think all of them are in the Coliseum. That area and the Grandstand is used quite often for various races, including the night before the 500. They used to motorcycle races there before the Moto-GP at IMS, but I don't know if the Fair was going to be over in time this year.
"Pete C." wrote
My thought also. Why do we need all these bolts when it is just coming down in a couple more days? I hope that was not the case. I've always avoided rides on traveling carnivals for that reason. I've seen the seedy crews some use to set them up.
A "bow echo" on radar is suggestive of strong straight line winds. Warnings can be issued based on bow echos.
Under the right conditions (wind toward or away from radar site and radar site relatively near the event so radar can see near the ground) doppler radar can read the wind speed.
A thunderstorm is a hazard for lightning anyway.
For reality on the ground the NWS relies on trained weather spotters. A gust front can affect a relatively large area and weather spotter reports are more likely. The system is setup to get information to the NWS fast.
From what I have read here there was a warning 4 minutes in advance. A question is what the fair officials had been told. Did they suggest people move away or tell them to move away.
For state fair events and baseball games (open roof) here a meteorologist is watching the weather.
Will be interesting what the failure was and whether standards need to be higher.
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