Inside the symphony's evacuation plan

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - No evacuation orders were given before the storm front hit the Indiana State Fair grandstand Saturday night. The story was very different at another local outdoor concert that night.

Officials with the Indiana State Fair have not said if the grandstand stage and rigging had been inspected before Saturday's deadly collapse, but the Indiana Department of Homeland Security says neither its personnel nor the State Fire Marshal’s office perform those types of inspections. A spokesman for the City of Indianapolis told 24-Hour News 8 it does not have the authority to inspect things on state property.

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IOSHA says it now has up to five inspectors at the fairgrounds, which is many more than the number for a standard case.

One focus of that investigation will be on the clock and the crowd. And some are raising new questions over why evacuation orders were never given.

As the excited crowd at the fairgrounds waited for Sugarland to take to the grandstand stage, the music was already underway at Conner Prairie in Hamilton County, about 13 miles away. Nearly 7,000 people were enjoying one the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra’s most popular annual events — the "Classical Mystery Tour, Music of the Beatles” show.

But, less than 20 minutes after that tour began, the tour came to an abrupt stop.

“Before the show began at 8, we told [the crowd] we felt like we could probably get at least some music in. I believe it was 8:19 that we sent the announcer up on stage again. And, the announcer went up and said the storm was approaching, it had lightning in it, and there was plenty of time to get to the cars, but we stopped the concert and asked people to move to their cars,” ISO Vice-President and General Manager Tom Ramsey told 24-Hour News 8.

It's the kind of call Ramsey has made dozens of times over the last 30 years. He sticks to “the system.”

“It's the result of a long process we go through anytime we play outdoors, and we've developed this process over a period of many years. We collect a lot of information. And, you have to do that in order to figure out what's the best course of action. Because every weather event, they're all different. We subscribe to a weather monitoring service that we monitor on computers out there that gives us very, very detailed information. How fast is the storm front moving? Is there lightning in it? Lightning is usually our biggest concern,” Ramsey said.

ISO also asks the National Weather Service for its help.

“We began calling them earlier in the afternoon, and we stayed in contact with them up until we decided to evacuate,” Ramsey said.

Symphony policy says evacuations should be ordered if a storm with lightning is 10-15 miles away.

“If we have a very large audience, like we had Saturday night, then we have to decide how much time will it take those folks to get from the bowl to their cars. Working backwards from the speed of the storm front, how soon will it get to the 10 to 15 mile area, and how much more time do you need to get people evacuated. Then we arrive at a point where if we see lightning, and it's still coming our way, even though the audience may not be noticing it, we'll stop the concert at that point,” Ramsey said.

Documents obtained by 24 Hour News 8 also describe evacuation procedures at the State Fairgrounds, but they only specifically address tents and buildings. There is no mention in the Fairgrounds severe thunderstorm plan of how, or when to evacuate the grandstands.

Even so, fair officials say that decision had been made on Saturday night.

"As we were going to make that announcement that now is the time to exit the stands, the straight line wind came and took down that roof structure,” said Indiana State Fair spokesman Andy Klotz.

An Indiana State Police spokesman also said an announcement was made to fans in the grandstands that a severe storm was approaching. That occurred approximately four minutes before the rigging on the stage collapsed.

Still, according to that fair policy, patrons are to be notified by loudspeaker if a severe thunderstorm warning is issued by the NWS. That happened at 8:39 p.m., approximately 10 minutes before the rigging fell. That specific announcement about a severe thunderstorm warning was never made.

Asked about that lack of warning, Ramsey said he didn’t want to speculate.

“I can't second guess their call,” he said. “I don't know what information they were gathering. I mean, it's just impossible. I can only say, for us, when in doubt, err on the side of safety.”

An IOSHA spokesman says it will likely take several months before the state’s investigation into the rigging collapse is completed.