Sunday, June 29, 2008

Miscellaneous reports from the air show tragedy...


A five-year old boy was killed when an A/C unit fell out of a window & landed on the child.

People in one tent took cover as the winds took the surrounding fence down...took cover underneath the tent. They were literally holding the tent down from underneath...

1 death and 12 injuries confirmed....per WHNT 19...

Most of the people injured were not life threatening per WAFF...

Airport officials say they will release no more info today and the news conference lasted 3 minutes

Heard same on WHNT: 12 at Huntsville Hospital...2 children, 4 under 18, & 6 adults. All injuries are bumps/bruises/ broken arms, etc...

Entire Madison Police Dept was called in to cordon off the entire perimeter of the damage area...

Official report by NWS Huntsville:
HUN: 3 Ssw Madison [Madison Co, AL] emergency mngr reports TSTM WND GST of M48 MPH at 02:05 PM CDT -- *** 1 fatal, 12 inj *** microburst produced a 41kt gust at the khsv asos. tents and aircraft at the huntsville airshow were overturned causing a fatality and several injuries.

5 comments:

Dewdrop said...

Why did they go on with the airshow in that kind of weather?! What is the deal?

Mike Wilhelm said...

It was pretty much an all afternoon event. There were upwards of 50,000 people on the airport grounds with no shelter; just tents.

According to Tim Troutman, NWS HUN WCM, the airport authority actually stopped the air show in response to a significant wx alert.

But there was no place for people to go. The tents were blown up and dragged debris into people causing the fatality and injuries.

I really do not think anything could have been done to prevent this. They canceled the rest of the air show, of course.

Dewdrop said...

That makes more sense. How tragic.

Mike Wilhelm said...

Very sad. It shows how dangerous even a non-severe thunderstorm can be.

Mike Wilhelm said...

Yes it does. And not just lightning.