Stage collapse in storm in Oklahoma

Does anybody know whose rig this is? I found this video on youtube, linked from this blog. The rig looks really similar to what we hired in from Toucan Lighting last month for our bike rally, and I think I worked with the third guy who walks past the camera at 0:53 in the video. But, I'm not totally certain. I'm still trying to find better pictures.
 
Does anybody know whose rig this is? I found this video on youtube, linked from this blog. The rig looks really similar to what we hired in from Toucan Lighting last month for our bike rally, and I think I worked with the third guy who walks past the camera at 0:53 in the video. But, I'm not totally certain. I'm still trying to find better pictures.

I will be down in OKC this week, I believe toucan will be stopping by the space to drop off some gear that day, I'll ask. I bet it is them, unless they are pulling gear out of Kansas City, I don't know where else they would get it.
 
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Is that Booger on the right? Looks like his mustache. I think it was Silva I saw in the youtube video, but the quality was pretty poor. More pictures here.

Oklahoma weather is tricky. If they forecast 80% chance of rain, it might sprinkle for a half hour. But if they say 20% chance of showers, take cover!

I know nothing of temporary staging, trusses, chain lifts. How much wind can a rig like this withstand? I don't mean to violate our TOS, and I certainly am not looking for specific, how-to info. But in general, what weather forecast would have you worried?
 
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...in general, what weather forecast would have you worried?
In general, any prediction of winds over 15mph should make one worry. Regardless of forecast, ALL ground supported truss structures outdoors need to be guy-wired. ALL ground-supported truss structures indoors should be safetied to the roof.

Roofs and backdrops become giant sails and the larger the surface area the greater the forces. Bill Sapsis advocates the "mafia block"--a 3' cube of concrete weighing approx. two tons, with a bend of rerod in the top as an attachment point, but even these may not be enough in the wrong circumstances.
 
ALL ground supported truss structures outdoors need to be guy-wired.
I know Toucan ran guy wires for our show - punched stakes into the asphalt, then couldn't extract them. I'd assume they would use guy wires for Rocklahoma. We've had an extraordinary amount of rainfall in Oklahoma this spring and summer. Would saturated ground make the guy wires less effective, and more susceptible to being ripped out?
 
I know Toucan ran guy wires for our show - punched stakes into the asphalt, then couldn't extract them. I'd assume they would use guy wires for Rocklahoma. We've had an extraordinary amount of rainfall in Oklahoma this spring and summer. Would saturated ground make the guy wires less effective, and more susceptible to being ripped out?

Really, what I think it comes down to is they were not expection 50+ wind, even though this year has been and insane weather year. We have had 4 tornado warnings up here in Wichita since I got here in May. OKC has seen nearly the same. It depends what they guy wire was attached to, but in these winds and with that large of a structure, anything is possible. Cables can fail, anchors can pull. Those roofs are very large, and when the top is up you can get some insane forces very easily. In those winds they should have not had anyone on that stage, it really surprises me that they did. For those of us who have lived in this area, when you see a storm like that blowing in, you go for cover because you won't have time to when you need to later.

Also, from what I have read, they had not one, but TWO stages go down.
 
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I find it interesting that in all these pictures the gear appears to still be properly attached to the truss. Looks to me like they did their job nicely hanging gear, they just got blasted by some nasty winds.

Reminds me of a story about this music festival not to far away. It's in a hot part of the state in the summer so they hang a big tarp for shade. They claim it's a professionally designed tarp but the local university rigger thinks it's just one for covering hay that they got down at the feed store. Sure looks like a big blue tarp to me. From there they run aircraft cable all the way around through the grommets. Then they tie it to telephone poles and homemade devices attached to the roof of the building. Instead of good rated cable and hardware they use things like ratchet straps from trucks with a hook end instead of a closed eye. They use dog clips, biners that are clearly not rated, all kinds of terrible stuff that looks like it's just barely holding together. Best off all the area is often subject to high winds. The local rigger takes pictures and tells them every year they are going to kill someone but they don't listen. I'll post pictures of the tragedy when it happens... idiots.

Giant tarp + high winds = LIFT
 
I was down at xtreme structures talking to them about the roof system they are buying. Tim, their rigging guy told me to always make sure the contract had a disclamer in there, saying if the winds reach over x amout then the roof is comming down, if it gets windyer than pull the covers off. I have learned to always anchor to a good "ballast". A good ballast consists of at least 5k lbs or a suitable stake. Many companies use barrels full of water, when ever possible i tie off to our 24' trucks. If I was the production company, I would at least drop the roof down to a lower level. (it looks almost like they did, but the winds continued to blow the rest over). I guess they arent too worried about saving their gear, if it were me i'd have it all covered with tarps or something. I did a show a while back and I knew we were going to get rain, but the people kept praying that this little spec of no rain they kept showing on the weather channel would stay over us. Naturally it did not, i ended up cutting a big hole through the roof, to keep the water from pulling the roof down. We had already lowered it. Never again am i taking those chances. I ended up having about 40 moving lights and a dimmer rack go swimming. (the dimmer rack was completely submerged, the moving lights had water pouring out the fronts of them) Luckally after the storm blew through, and a ton of hair dryers, I was able to save the show.
 

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