1 dead after storm blows down St. Louis beer tent

ST. LOUIS (AP) - Authorities in St. Louis say high winds swept through a beer tent where 200 people gathered after a Cardinals game Saturday, killing one and critically injuring at least five others. But the owner of the bar says it was lightning -- not wind -- that killed the patron.

At least 17 were hospitalized and up to 100 people were treated at the scene after officials said straight-line winds whipped through a large tent outside Kilroy's Sports Bar, near Busch Stadium.

The director for the St. Louis Department of Public Safety says winds of about 50 mph shattered aluminum poles that held up the tent. The force of the wind blew the tent onto an adjacent railroad bridge.

Kilroy's owner Art Randall described a short burst of a storm -- perhaps five seconds -- with a massive wind that lifted the huge tent, threw it perhaps 100 feet into the air and sent the aluminum poles and most everything in the tent airborne.

Randall says as the wind blew, a bolt of lightning crashed into the bar. He says firefighters told him it was a lightning strike -- not flying debris -- that killed the man.