We’ve had a summer of slightly more intense than usual storms, I can’t help but think that’s a contributing factor.
However, winds of that level are a feature of Indiana as a whole, and occur several times a year. Any structure of that weight put up should be built while taking that into account. So the question is, was that done? Or was this some company that puts up stages like this, but doesn’t engineer them for wind loads of 70 mph? (Or even more - my area had a 100 mph wind gust earlier this year).
My friend’s mom and sister were there. Thank God they’re ok, her mom had a “funny feeling” so they moved away from the stage just a few minutes before it fell.
Am I the only person a bit taken aback that the Governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels, said in a press conference today that last night’s stage collapse was a “fluke” that could not have possibly been foreseen or prevented, and that despite the 5 people killed and the dozens seriously injured, that this year’s Indiana State Fair was “the finest one we’ve ever had.”?
Jesus Christ, that stage is such a flimsy piece of shit! I’m utterly astonished at how fucking flimsy it looks. Here in Indiana, we have to deal with strong winds and storms all the time. Any structure incapable of standing up to them should never have been built in the first place. This is an unbelievable outrage.
The stage looks like it is perfectly engineered to hold a static load - a bunch of weight coming straight down. But as can clearly be seen in the still photo I linked to earlier (a definite Pulitzer nominee IMO) the upright trusses, which ship in sections, separated. They are not designed for shear forces. As you can see from the photo, the upright trusses are a lot smaller than the horizontal ones, which are intended to support the lighting, sound and other stage equipment. But all the trusses are as small and light as possible. These things are hauled all over the country, and every extra pound and cubic foot costs to ship.
But what I said earlier is this - I don’t see any evidence of guy wires being used. Anything this big, covered with a huge tarp, with an even bigger tarp hanging down the back, with a several ton load hanging from the front edge of the whole mess needs guy wires on the back and sides. If I were hanging this, I’d insist on some attached to the front as well.
Not to turn this into a political debate, but Gov. Daniels is well known for his anti-Union position. Was anyone from the Operating Engineers union involved in this?
The ones I’m thinking of happened in widely separated areas in Canada over the last couple of years - it almost seems like there is a trend of people who put these things up not doing a very good job of it.
They’re temporary structures engineered to withstand likely worst-case conditions. When the worst-case conditions exceed those predicted, there may be trouble.
We had a stage collapse in Ottawa this year with Cheap Trick playing. Fortunately no one was killed.
Funny how no one claims negligence when a tornado rips through a trailer park.
Shit happens, and this was a microburst that exceeded design calculations: nothing more, nothing less.
Nope, not a microburst. It was a wind gust. As I mentioned, we get those several times a year at that intensity. Such a gust IS a foreseeable condition in Indiana, even if they don’t occur every day.
I was out in the weather just a few miles away from the fairgrounds last night when it happened. I’ve lived in Indianapolis for 11 years (after growing up in Kansas, where the weather is extremely similar), and I’ve never experienced sudden wind bursts that strong before. I don’t know anything about stage construction, or anything like that - but it seems like if all the carny rides a few hundred feet away managed to not kill anyone (for once), that stage should have done the same.
The gaffers that did the rigging should be ashamed. There’s no excuse for accidents like this. The wind didn’t look that strong in the video. Certainly not anything the stage couldn’t reasonably handle.
It looks like the company that put it up is Mid-America Sound (“one of the largest full-service concert and event production companies in the U.S.”), based in Greenfield, Indiana, so you’d think they should be familiar with Indiana weather.
Building such structures to withstand gusting around 70 mph should be routine. That’s fierce, sure, but not wildly unusual in the vicinity of thunderstorms in flat country. The possibility of a major storm moving across the area sometime during the fair (scheduled to run more than two weeks) should have been assumed.
I find Daniels’ remark there astounding. Is it possible he was still shaken, not thinking straight? Because other interpretations are all worse.
What kind of governor offers up such excuses, without any investigation, in the wake of an accident that has just killed and maimed his people?
I see we’re all meteorologists with access to the exact conditions at the stage, and of course civil engineering experts to boot.
It was a fluke. Sometimes flukes happen. I have no dog in this fight, but I find it interesting that SDMB members would be so presumptuously ignorant and jump to conclusions. Think about it. The winds could have been much, much stronger in that specific area. Right now you’re unduly pointing fingers without having all the facts.
The wind speed was taken from National Weather Service estimates. You know, professional weather people. It’s been described as a “gust”, not a “microburst” or “tornado” or “hurricane” or anything else.
I’ve lived in this general region of the Midwest for 28 years. I have experienced sudden wind gusts of high intensity before, so I know from direct experience that they do occur.
We do not have structures collapse every time the wind gusts up to 60-70 mph around here. So far as we’ve heard, the stage was the ONLY thing to collapse at the fair.
Obviously, an investigation in to the matter is a good idea, and really, it’s not unreasonable to ask “was there something structurally wrong here?”
Sure. The same thing happened here last month with Cheap Trick and the weather people were saying the same thing. But unless you had an actual monitor at the stage then you have no idea how strong the wind may have been, right there, right then, at that time.
Don’t jump to conclusions about poor engineering or construction. You have no idea.
It’s like blaming a plane crash on pilot error without having all the information. I trust this isn’t difficult to grasp. Not picking on you specifically but people seem to be jumping all over the design or construction without knowing all the facts.
Isn’t this place about fighting ignorance, not pointing fingers.
ETA: And yes, the investigation should be able to answer these questions, just like the Ottawa incident.
But it keeps happening - once in a lifetime is a fluke. A couple of outdoor concerts getting blown over and people getting seriously injured or killed every season is not a fluke.
It’s worth noting in that video, that most of the crowd is already moving away and you can hear the words: “Leave the Area” at around the 5-6 second mark.
It would seem pretty basic to model these structures and have wind/load sensors to warn folks if things are getting risky.
Plane crashes keep happening too. There may, or may not, be any related theme here in these stage collapses. We don’t know. I suggest that jumping to conclusions about engineering or construction is exactly what we shouldn’t be doing.
The investigation will continue, as the one in Ottawa is, and we will learn.
Unfortunately disasters happen all the time. We could go another 10 years without one of these happening again. Let the investigation run its course.
Again, these are temporary structures and there will always be a trade-off between cost, convenience and engineering.
