Indiana State Fair Stage Collapse

[Heald]

SRkdwrmzYXg

...Holy Hell

[mr_pikachu]

The weather was crazy here when it happened last night. I, Becky, and a couple of friends were in Starbucks when in happened -- I don't drink coffee, but they do -- and the tables and chairs outside suddenly started toppling over. The staff ran outside to retrieve the umbrella stands and to carefully tip over chairs and tables so that they wouldn't do any damage from crashing down of their own accord. I held the door open for them in the meantime, and I was shocked at how hard the wind was pushing back.

Local news (http://www.jconline.com/article/20110808/NEWS/108080321/Thunderstorm-causes-outages-minor-crashes?odyssey=tab|mostpopular|text|FRONTPAGE): "According to observations recorded by the National Weather Service in Indianapolis, the storm produced 0.37 inches of rain in five minutes and 67 mph winds."

Given that we're about an hour's drive from Indianapolis (roughly 50-60 miles, I believe), I can only imagine how dangerous it was at the fair. From what I've heard (http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20110814/GPG0101/110814030/Photos-video-story-5-killed-winds-topple-Indiana-State-Fair-stage), five have been pronounced dead so far, with 45 more hospitalized. I feel for the families of those who were killed by the accident in Indianapolis and wish them all the best. The same goes for those who were injured -- some of whom are in critical condition at the moment.

[mattbcl]

Good lord. What a catastrophe. It's like watching a train wreck - I'm horrified at what I see, and yet I can't quite tear my eyes away from the sight of it. But I'm really proud of the people who instantly went rushing towards it to help out the ones that vanished from sight.

[Gavin Luper]

This is absolutely awful. My thoughts are with them all, and their families.

[Blademaster]

Well that certainly put a damper on the festivities. But 67 mph winds? I kinda find that more scary than the collapse. That doesn't sound like normal weather to me...

[Becky]

Brian, I'm not sure if you realized it, but two of our friends were at that concert when it happened (the ones whose wedding we're in next month). I'm glad they weren't injured, but it's still terrible.

We did camp out at SB for awhile-- actually, Brian was helping the poor baristas outside who were getting soaked and chasing after the outdoor furniture. I was worried about him at several points, especially when it was hailing. But I can't imagine what it must have been like at the fair. My thoughts are with them.

[mr_pikachu]

Apparently some experts think the collapse was caused by something called a gustnado (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/16/us-stage-collapse-weather-idUSTRE77F6LE20110816).

...

I'm going to refrain from excessively mocking the unnecessary and weird term, given the gravity of this tragedy. But still... gustnado? We couldn't have found a better word than that?

[mattbcl]

According to Wikipedia, that font of infallibility, the term hasn't yet been accepted into official weather nomenclature - it's more of a colloquial term for those of us in the Midwest, where it tends to be the most common.

[mr_pikachu]

Bah. In my day, you know what we called that? Wind.

In any case, the funny thing is that experts are completely disagreeing with one another about whether that was what happened, anyway. Some say it was a whirlwind-like gustnado that felled the equipment, while others argue that straight-line winds doomed the event. Those two guesses -- you can't really call them anything other than guesses at this point -- are about as different as they could possibly be.

[mattbcl]

We have a far more interesting name for straight-line winds - a derecho. We experienced one of those a couple months ago... a tree fell down across my lawn and just about toppled onto the house. One of its thicker branches was resting against my front porch overhang. Very thankful it didn't do worse to my place - the region was strewn with fallen trees, ripped straight out of the ground. Some of them had roots three, four, five feet deep that were just torn right out. Scary thing. Actually, I figured that's what I was looking at with the stage collapse. But not being a meteorologist, I'm with you... I'm just gonna call it wind.

[Magmar]

It's called a downburst (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downburst).

/tpm meteorologist/human resources expert

This is awful. :(

[Blademaster]

A wind of that speed when I was a kid was just called a 'gale.' The term preceding that was 'gust.'

The term succeeding it was 'tornado.'

...Yeah...

[mr_pikachu]

Now we have the mighty bugnado (http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/behold-bugnado-203649838.html). It's official: scientists are just making up this stuff as they go.

In more thread-relevant news, it turns out that fair officials knew about the National Weather Service warning (http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/7125980-418/indiana-state-fair-stage-collapse-no-fluke.html) (the most serious alarm the organization can sound) six minutes before announcing that the show would go on.

Here comes the lawsuit (http://wcsi.whiterivernews.com/templates/localnews_temp.asp?id=3793&storyno=2)!

[Gavin Luper]

Now we have the mighty bugnado (http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/behold-bugnado-203649838.html). It's official: scientists are just making up this stuff as they go.

XD

This is hilarious. I want a Gavinado.


In more thread-relevant news, it turns out that fair officials knew about the National Weather Service warning (http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/7125980-418/indiana-state-fair-stage-collapse-no-fluke.html) (the most serious alarm the organization can sound) six minutes before announcing that the show would go on.

Here comes the lawsuit (http://wcsi.whiterivernews.com/templates/localnews_temp.asp?id=3793&storyno=2)!

Heads. Are. Going. To. Roll.

[Blademaster]

Ooh, drama!

[ChobiChibi]

Deadly storm strikes Belgium's Pukkelpop festival. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14582448)
MLG! Are you okay?!

What a strange coincidence that a similar incident happens elsewhere in the world in such a short space of time.

[Drago]

Have they done an investigation into the strength of the stage itself yet? Or is their choice to ignore the forecast enough to make that irrelevant?

[mr_pikachu]

Yeah, they're looking into that, as well. Apparently there are no regulations for stages in Indiana, so people don't have to get a permit or anything. Officials are trying to determine whether anyone looked at the rigging beforehand... I presume that will help them to determine who is at fault if poor stage construction was, in fact, a contributing factor.

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

67 miles per hour is about 30 meters per second. If I counted properly. This is terrible. Was there a band playing when this happened? Are they OK?

But at least good news to fellow TPMers about the event in Belgium. MeLoVeGhOsTs is alive, he posted this thread. (http://www.pokemasters.net/forums/showthread.php?p=515611)

[Magmar]

67 mph is about the speed limit for driving on highways, I'd imagine that's pretty close to universal unless you live in a very rural area (to put it in perspective for our awesome pals who live with the agony and obvious difficulty of a far simpler, easier to understand, and more intuitive metric system).

This whole situation reminds me painfully of the February 2003 station fire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Station_nightclub_fire) :(

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

So sad. And the highest summer driving speed limit I generally come across is 100 kilometers per hour where I live.

[MeLoVeGhOsTs]

I'm ok. A lot of my friends were there, but none of them got hurt. Actually an acquaintance got hit by a huge soundbox and went to the E.R for head injuries, but he's alright.

My neighbor saw someone die, though, pretty traumatic.

Also, you can science or bullshit me all you want, but I believe this weather is a taste of what has yet to come. Global warming isn't a fairy tale and we humans should finally start giving a fuck and try and do something about it.

[Dark Sage]

The more I look at this disaster, then more I think that whoever was in charge of this event should be held accountable because he didn't cancel it. A few post above say that the bad weather had been predicted, so why was this concert even happening on an open-air stage?

Natural disasters cause more damage when combined with human stupidity. That's one of the reasons why G.W. Bush will always be someone I will always despise.