INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana State Fair reopened on Monday as state officials investigated how lights and rigging crashed down on a concert stage here over the weekend, leaving five dead and injuring dozens.
A subdued crowd streamed back into the fairgrounds, which was closed Sunday after the collapse on Saturday night. Some fairgoers stopped to stare at the stage, still an enormous tangle of metal and flapping tarps now cordoned off with yellow police tape. On a smaller stage, leaders offered prayers in a somber service of remembrance on Monday morning.
"We come today with hearts that are broken but also hearts that are full," Gov. Mitch Daniels told the silent crowd as helicopters circled overhead. Amid the tragedy, Mr. Daniels said, many Hoosiers in the crowd had tried to save those who were trapped under rigging. "There was a hero every 10 feet on Saturday night," Mr. Daniels said, adding, "I cannot tell you how proud I am to be the employee of six and a half million people like that."
Even as the fair reopened, state officials were investigating the cause of the collapse and what role the weather, including a wind gust that topped 60 miles an hour, might have played.
Along with checking for any evidence of structural problems with the stage, investigators were looking into whether fair officials acted swiftly enough or paid appropriate heed to a severe thunderstorm watch that was issued nearly three hours before the scheduled concert.
The rigging collapsed at 8:49 p.m., minutes before the featured act, the country duo Sugarland, was to take the stage. The musicians were not injured.
Videos posted online shortly after the accident show plumes of gravel and sand lashing through a nearly pitch-black sky. The tarp roof and backdrop of the stage flaps violently moments before the steel rigging slumps and topples onto a screaming crowd in front of the stage.
Stacia Floyd, 22, who watched the scene unfold from the grandstand with her boyfriend and 4-year-old daughter, described it as "the worst thing I've ever seen."
"There were people that were bawling," she said in telephone interview on Sunday. "Everyone was really scared, shaken up."
Ms. Floyd said that moments before the crash, an announcement said that the concert might be postponed and that concertgoers should head indoors and return after the storm had passed.
The video footage posted online shows some people in the crowd starting to move, but Ms. Floyd said it appeared that most people stayed until the rigging began to collapse.
"It could have been prevented if the place had been evacuated properly," Ms. Floyd said. "They knew the weather was coming. They should have evacuated it fast."
The Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the state fire marshal's office were investigating what caused the collapse, said Cindy Hoye, the fair's executive director. Officials said that according to weather reports, a highly localized windstorm with a gust that topped 60 m.p.h. hit the concert site just before the stage collapsed.
The rigging was assembled by local workers and supplied by an outside company, the Mid-America Sound Corporation, which is based in Indiana, Ms. Hoye said. In a statement issued on Sunday, the company said: "This is a devastating tragedy, and we want to express our sympathy to the families of those who were killed or injured last night at the state fair. We have already started an independent internal investigation to understand, to the best of our ability, what happened."
Video footage showed a scene of chaos.
Stagehands operating lights and equipment high above the stage plummeted into the crowd along with the rigging, according to concertgoers.
Most of the victims had seats in the V.I.P. section called the Sugarpit, according to WTHR.com, a local NBC affiliate.
Witnesses said that concertgoers, who initially fled as the rigging collapsed, rushed back moments later to help those caught in the debris as the thunderstorm rolled in.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/16/us/16indiana.html
A subdued crowd streamed back into the fairgrounds, which was closed Sunday after the collapse on Saturday night. Some fairgoers stopped to stare at the stage, still an enormous tangle of metal and flapping tarps now cordoned off with yellow police tape. On a smaller stage, leaders offered prayers in a somber service of remembrance on Monday morning.
"We come today with hearts that are broken but also hearts that are full," Gov. Mitch Daniels told the silent crowd as helicopters circled overhead. Amid the tragedy, Mr. Daniels said, many Hoosiers in the crowd had tried to save those who were trapped under rigging. "There was a hero every 10 feet on Saturday night," Mr. Daniels said, adding, "I cannot tell you how proud I am to be the employee of six and a half million people like that."
Even as the fair reopened, state officials were investigating the cause of the collapse and what role the weather, including a wind gust that topped 60 miles an hour, might have played.
Along with checking for any evidence of structural problems with the stage, investigators were looking into whether fair officials acted swiftly enough or paid appropriate heed to a severe thunderstorm watch that was issued nearly three hours before the scheduled concert.
The rigging collapsed at 8:49 p.m., minutes before the featured act, the country duo Sugarland, was to take the stage. The musicians were not injured.
Videos posted online shortly after the accident show plumes of gravel and sand lashing through a nearly pitch-black sky. The tarp roof and backdrop of the stage flaps violently moments before the steel rigging slumps and topples onto a screaming crowd in front of the stage.
Stacia Floyd, 22, who watched the scene unfold from the grandstand with her boyfriend and 4-year-old daughter, described it as "the worst thing I've ever seen."
"There were people that were bawling," she said in telephone interview on Sunday. "Everyone was really scared, shaken up."
Ms. Floyd said that moments before the crash, an announcement said that the concert might be postponed and that concertgoers should head indoors and return after the storm had passed.
The video footage posted online shows some people in the crowd starting to move, but Ms. Floyd said it appeared that most people stayed until the rigging began to collapse.
"It could have been prevented if the place had been evacuated properly," Ms. Floyd said. "They knew the weather was coming. They should have evacuated it fast."
The Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the state fire marshal's office were investigating what caused the collapse, said Cindy Hoye, the fair's executive director. Officials said that according to weather reports, a highly localized windstorm with a gust that topped 60 m.p.h. hit the concert site just before the stage collapsed.
The rigging was assembled by local workers and supplied by an outside company, the Mid-America Sound Corporation, which is based in Indiana, Ms. Hoye said. In a statement issued on Sunday, the company said: "This is a devastating tragedy, and we want to express our sympathy to the families of those who were killed or injured last night at the state fair. We have already started an independent internal investigation to understand, to the best of our ability, what happened."
Video footage showed a scene of chaos.
Stagehands operating lights and equipment high above the stage plummeted into the crowd along with the rigging, according to concertgoers.
Most of the victims had seats in the V.I.P. section called the Sugarpit, according to WTHR.com, a local NBC affiliate.
Witnesses said that concertgoers, who initially fled as the rigging collapsed, rushed back moments later to help those caught in the debris as the thunderstorm rolled in.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/16/us/16indiana.html
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