Thunderstorm causes death

To be fair, the storm was violent, quick and sudden. Haven't seen hail like that in a LONG time. The destruction in the upper Great Lakes region is pretty widespread.

But on the other hand Lolla had time to evacuate so at least someone is taking the weather threat seriously.
 
We had high winds here in southern WI as well. A few trees went down and knocked out the power for about 12 hours. We lost a swing set, 2 horses got out, and a fence to a pasture got taken out. Glad it happened at night and were closed on Mondays. It gave us a chance to clean up.

It was quite fast happened in about an hour.

It sucks when Mother Nature throws you a fast one. Hopefully it doesn't ruin the rest of Lolla.
 
I was doing audio/lighting for a event in Central Ontario not far from the coast of Lake Huron when the storm hit, there was actually a confirmed tornado not far away. The Event was a "town reunion" hosted over the long weekend once every ten years.

I had a hell of a time convincing the organizers to force everyone to seek shelter in advance of the first "band" of the weather coming though. I had the band stop playing and pack it in, however they were taking their time doing so. Also announced for everyone to immediately seek shelter in the nearby community centre/arena. Most of the masses just wanted to go under the large tents.
I again announce over the PA (while myself trying to continue to batton down as well as possible for high winds).

Just before the storm hit I managed to convince to get the last person to get off stage and seek shelter, while also getting security to get everyone into the storm shelter.

When it hit one of the tents was mostly evacuated, and the other was mostly full. The doorway and lobby of the area had bottlenecked, as many people once safe stopped moving well. Without any time for better shelter I hunkered into the very heavy duty FOH tent (small and very sturdy, thankfully we insisted upon this). And yes I am well aware that ANY tent is not the place to be in severe weather.

Thankfully there were only two injuries, both people who had without anyone noticing stayed behind in the Bar Tent. Two of the tent poles snapped in the wind, one hitting a girl in the face and another hitting one in the chest. They were fine and did not require an ambulance, but very sore.

All in all the first bit of the storm we fared out very lucky regardless of organizers not really preparing for that kind of weather.

Organizers resumed the event after the first band of the storm passed though and the grounds made safe. After talking with the organizers I convinced them to cancel the rest of the event for the evening, save for the small play performance inside the community centre (which is a storm shelter). After the second band of the storm passed we sent the rest home for the day.

I think they learned their lesson from the afternoon storm. I hope. Everyone was lucky that the tornado missed us.

There was lots of twisted fencing, and two snapped tent poles that were easily replaced. Most of the fencing was on the ground. A bunch of destroyed swag from the band, and some moisture which became a little annoying the next day as we lost a few snake channels. Other than that everything weathered the storm well.

Having a plan of action for severe weather is so important I feel, and more and more organizers need to heed this. No matter how much they don't want to cancel events. I heard reports the next day of several things, including an event where a large tent had come down leaving 100+ people under the canvas.
 

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