Your stage collapse video of the day

[Caliga]

How hard is it to build a stage that doesn't collapse?   Isn't that the number one requirement of any stage?

Well, one of the design requirements for the WTC was that the towers would be able to withstand an airliner impact, and you saw how well that worked out...

[Ideologue]

How hard is it to build a stage that doesn't collapse?   Isn't that the number one requirement of any stage?

Well, one of the design requirements for the WTC was that the towers would be able to withstand an airliner impact, and you saw how well that worked out...

They did for a while.

[BVN]

How hard is it to build a stage that doesn't collapse?   Isn't that the number one requirement of any stage?

It was not really the stages that collapsed but the tents they were set up in. The tents collapsed because of very strong winds and heavy rain and hailstones (a mini-hurricane). It was all over in about 10 minutes.

5 deaths confirmed.

[Eddie Teach]

How hard is it to build a stage that doesn't collapse?   Isn't that the number one requirement of any stage?

Well, one of the design requirements for the WTC was that the towers would be able to withstand an airliner impact, and you saw how well that worked out...

Did they have such big planes back when it was built? When was it built for that matter? 

[CountDeMoney]

How hard is it to build a stage that doesn't collapse?   Isn't that the number one requirement of any stage?

Well, one of the design requirements for the WTC was that the towers would be able to withstand an airliner impact, and you saw how well that worked out...

Yeah, because you can really QA/QC that one in project management.  Don't be silly.

[Caliga]

Yeah, because you can really QA/QC that one in project management.  Don't be silly.

[jimmy olsen]

I smell a successful lawsuit.

http://www.indystar.com/article/20110817/NEWS15/108170327/Despite-weather-warnings-fair-concert-went-on?odyssey=mod|breaking|text|IndyStar.com

Indiana State Fair received 3 days of bad-weather alerts before Sugarland stage collapse

After the National Weather Service issued its most serious alarm, fair officials didn't evacuate the concert

1:21 PM, Aug. 17, 2011  | 
182 Comments

Emergency responders nationwide know what a National Weather Service warning means: Take cover. Immediately.

But that wasn't the message Indiana State Fair officials delivered to concertgoers when they received that warning -- the most serious alarm the National Weather Service can sound -- at 8:39 p.m. Saturday. Instead, fair officials waited six minutes and then told 12,000 Sugarland fans a very different message: The show would go on.

That was four minutes before high winds knocked over the stage structure, killing five people and injuring more than 45 others.

"Wow, that's incredible," weather.com meteorologist Tim Ballisty said of that fateful decision not to immediately evacuate the Grandstand. "It pains me to hear that because then the assumption is: Sugarland's about to come on; I don't want to miss this."

An Indianapolis Star review of documents, as well as interviews with weather and safety experts, suggests the choice not to evacuate was just the last in a series of decisions by fair officials and Indiana State Police to ignore meteorologists' recommendations, nationally accepted safety practices and even the fair's own severe weather emergency plan.

And -- contrary to the way state officials have characterized the wind gust that brought down the stage -- those weather experts insist the high winds were neither unpredictable nor unforeseen.

State officials are launching their own inquiry and bringing in a New York-based engineering firm to investigate the structural collapse, but they continue to portray it as an unforeseeable accident.

"It was a freakish act of God," fair spokesman Andy Klotz said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon, "and I don't know how it could have been prevented."

Gov. Mitch Daniels referred to the powerful wind gust that upset the stage as a "fluke."

Others strongly disagree.

"This is in no way a fluke or freak or unforeseeable," said Mike Smith, senior vice president of AccuWeather Enterprise Solutions in Wichita, Kan. His firm provides weather information to a variety of public and private clients, including the Texas State Fair.

Smith said AccuWeather issued a warning to a client near the Indiana State Fairgrounds at 8:23 p.m. advising of 60-mph winds. Smith used the same radar systems as the National Weather Service -- the same information available to fair officials.

That was 26 minutes before the collapse.

"When you get a warning, you should act immediately," said Smith, a board-certified consulting meteorologist and fellow of the American Meteorological Society. "You should not be second-guessing. . . . And in a case like that, it means take shelter."

But that was one of several warnings state fair officials and state police apparently failed to heed.

The first indication of potentially dangerous weather came well before Saturday evening. The National Weather Service had been sending notifications since Thursday morning about the possibility of high winds Saturday night.

There were other, more frequent warnings.

Daniel McCarthy, the meteorologist-in-charge at the National Weather Service in Indianapolis, told The Star that a forecaster alerted state fair officials in a 1 p.m. conference call Saturday about the possibility of a storm -- including up to 60-mph winds -- in Indianapolis between 8 and 9 p.m.

Moreover, meteorologist Ballisty said, strong winds almost always arrive ahead of a storm.

By the time of that conference call Saturday, fair officials had received three days of notifications -- called outlooks -- about the storm, which are a signal to prepare a plan for shelter and remain on alert.

Then, at 5:57 p.m., the weather service notified fair officials they were issuing a "severe thunderstorm watch," the second-highest alert level -- and just one step below a warning that recommends immediate evacuation. It's about that time, Ballisty said, that fair officials should have "perhaps" rescheduled the concert.

Instead, fair officials acknowledge they waited until 8:30 to prepare for an evacuation. Nine minutes later, the National Weather Service issued its strongest alarm -- the "severe thunderstorm warning" that carries a recommendation to take shelter immediately. In other words, evacuate.

McCarthy has been training emergency responders and others in the weather service's "outlook-watch-warning" sequence for 13 years.

"It's a ready, set, go type of concept," McCarthy said. "When a warning is issued, it's time to go. Go to safety."

That's not what happened.

Instead, the fair's executive director, Cindy Hoye, who had been monitoring the approaching storm with State Police Special Operations Commander Brad Weaver, turned to an old friend for help. That person was Bob Richards, 49, operations manager of the four Emmis radio stations in Indianapolis and program director from Hank FM, one of the concert's sponsors.

Richards said Hoye asked him to make an announcement to the audience waiting for Sugarland to take the stage. He said Hoye told him exactly what to say and he transcribed it on his cell phone.

"As you can see to the west, there are some clouds," Richards recited. "We are all hoping for the best -- that the weather is going to bypass us. But there is a very good chance that it won't. So just a quick heads-up before the show starts: If there is a point during the show where we have to stop the show onstage, what we'd like to have you do is calmly move toward the exits and then head across the street to either the Champions Pavilion, the Blue Ribbon Pavilion or the Pepsi Coliseum.

"And then, once the storm passes and everything's safe, we're going to try our best to come back and resume the show -- which we have every belief that that's going to happen."

The crowd cheered.

"So please get ready," Richards continued, "because in just a couple of minutes we're going to try to get Sugarland onstage. Have a great show."

In the aftermath of the tragedy, Richards said the timing of his announcement and his role were mischaracterized. Some news outlets reported that his announcement was made after fair officials had decided they would proceed with an evacuation.

"I was never told or knew of an evacuation notice," Richards said. "I was not a part of those decisions and I don't know the timeline for those decisions. . . . I was just doing what I was asked to do."

Klotz said fair officials were in the process of trying to make an evacuation announcement when the roof collapsed.

Fair officials had no reason to think the storm would cause the extent of damage that it did, Klotz said. Just a week earlier, the fairgrounds had three thunderstorms that he called "very similar," without the same punishing results.

When asked why fair officials didn't prepare an evacuation plan hours earlier, when the National Weather Service issued a watch, Klotz said: "I was not aware of other security and emergency personnel, what they know about that in relation to earlier National Weather Service warnings."

He said the only thing damaged by the winds was the stage structure that supported the roof and sound equipment. Even a large catering tent nearby "didn't have a flap out of place," he said.

Klotz insisted fair officials followed protocol in warning fairgoers throughout the evening, as information became available. But The Star's review of the fair's one-page severe thunderstorm policy suggests otherwise.

That policy says fair workers are supposed to announce severe thunderstorm warnings and direct fairgoers to safety. Numerous concertgoers said they were never told of the National Weather Service warning -- information that would have helped them make an informed decision about whether to leave their seats -- and it was not mentioned in Richards' announcement from the stage.

While fair officials did not order an evacuation, a few hundred yards to the west, the fair's amusement operator took a different approach. Officials of North American Midway Entertainment shut down several of the company's tall rides.

The company may close rides at its discretion in the event of bad weather, said company spokesman David Sease. For example, Sease said, under a written emergency action plan the company can -- and typically does -- close rides in the event of lightning.

And that's what they did just minutes before high winds hit the fairgrounds. Sease said managers were monitoring the skies as the storm approached and noticed lightning.

"As is our standard practice, when we see things like that, we shut down a few of the high rides," he said. "Very shortly after that the rain started, Midway management directed the staff to close the rest of the rides on our Midway and made sure that all our customers exited the rides safely. Our Midway was then closed for the rest of the evening."

Other fairs seem to take fewer liberties with interpreting National Weather Service instructions.

At the Iowa State Fair, where Sugarland was supposed to perform Sunday, marketing director Lori Chappell said safety officials adhere closely to the recommendations put out by the weather service and the level of seriousness of its notifications.

"Depending on the level it is," Chappell said, "our actions are in accordance with that."

Indiana State Police, who were involved in the decision-making on Saturday night with fair officials, are heading the investigation into the stage collapse.

That approach troubles some Hoosiers.

R.M. Van Frank, Indianapolis, said he thinks an outside, independent investigation is critical because the accident occurred at a state-sponsored event on state property, and because the probe should include a review of the decision-making process involving Hoye and Weaver, the State Police Special Operations commander.

"I've seen this sort of thing in the past," said Van Frank. "You have state agencies look at a state problem, and they say there's nothing there."

Call Star reporter Heather Gillers at (317) 444-6405.

[grumbler]

I wonder who will win the race:  the lawsuits, or the indictments.

There are people going to the pokey over this, I reckon.

[The Brain]

How hard is it to build a stage that doesn't collapse?   Isn't that the number one requirement of any stage?

Well, one of the design requirements for the WTC was that the towers would be able to withstand an airliner impact, and you saw how well that worked out...

Did they have such big planes back when it was built? When was it built for that matter? 

The 747 is ancient.

[alfred russel]

I smell a successful lawsuit.

While I don't question that a lucky group of Indiana lawyers are about to hit jackpot, once again you display the mentality of that most loathsome of creatures, the trial lawyer.

[Barrister]

How hard is it to build a stage that doesn't collapse?   Isn't that the number one requirement of any stage?

Well, one of the design requirements for the WTC was that the towers would be able to withstand an airliner impact, and you saw how well that worked out...

Yeah, because you can really QA/QC that one in project management.  Don't be silly.

Well since an airplane had previously struck the Empire State Building, it was a conceivable risk.

I'm pretty sure Cal is right - that was a design requirement for the WTC.  From what I remember from the 9/11 Commission, the design did succeed initial - the buildings did not collapse merely because of the force of the collision.  It was the extremely high temperatures from the fires that burned afterwards that weakened the steel, which then caused the building to collapse.

[grumbler]

I'm pretty sure Cal is right - that was a design requirement for the WTC.  From what I remember from the 9/11 Commission, the design did succeed initial - the buildings did not collapse merely because of the force of the collision.  It was the extremely high temperatures from the fires that burned afterwards that weakened the steel, which then caused the building to collapse.

The fires didn't burn especially intensely.  What happened that wasn't expected was that the fires burned unevenly, and that caused deformation of the beams holding the floors to the walls.  As the neams deformed, they detached from the outer walls, and that weakened the ability of the outer walls to hold up floors even higher, until one ofthe fllors was overloaded beyond its ability to hold even with undeformed beams, and the whole thing came down.

The aircraft were no larger than the buildings had been designed to withstand, and the fires no hotter.  What wasn't understood was that the fires on the outside of the building would burn significantly hotter than the fire in the interior, and result in unequal expansion.  This wouldn't have been an issue in a smaller fire, but there was simply so much fuel involved that it crippled multiple floors at once.

[DGuller]

Do the walls actually hold up anything in skyscrapers?  I was under impression that in skyscrapers, the internal structure is what holds thing up, and that walls are just ornaments hung onto it.

[CountDeMoney]

The fires didn't burn especially intensely.  What happened that wasn't expected was that the fires burned unevenly, and that caused deformation of the beams holding the floors to the walls.  As the neams deformed, they detached from the outer walls, and that weakened the ability of the outer walls to hold up floors even higher, until one ofthe fllors was overloaded beyond its ability to hold even with undeformed beams, and the whole thing came down.

The aircraft were no larger than the buildings had been designed to withstand, and the fires no hotter.  What wasn't understood was that the fires on the outside of the building would burn significantly hotter than the fire in the interior, and result in unequal expansion.  This wouldn't have been an issue in a smaller fire, but there was simply so much fuel involved that it crippled multiple floors at once.

Didn't help all the fireproofing material had been blown off from the impact explosion either.

[Barrister]

I'm pretty sure Cal is right - that was a design requirement for the WTC.  From what I remember from the 9/11 Commission, the design did succeed initial - the buildings did not collapse merely because of the force of the collision.  It was the extremely high temperatures from the fires that burned afterwards that weakened the steel, which then caused the building to collapse.

The fires didn't burn especially intensely.  What happened that wasn't expected was that the fires burned unevenly, and that caused deformation of the beams holding the floors to the walls.  As the neams deformed, they detached from the outer walls, and that weakened the ability of the outer walls to hold up floors even higher, until one ofthe fllors was overloaded beyond its ability to hold even with undeformed beams, and the whole thing came down.

The aircraft were no larger than the buildings had been designed to withstand, and the fires no hotter.  What wasn't understood was that the fires on the outside of the building would burn significantly hotter than the fire in the interior, and result in unequal expansion.  This wouldn't have been an issue in a smaller fire, but there was simply so much fuel involved that it crippled multiple floors at once.

That sounds correct.