Colorado Concert Venue Hailstorm Injures Nearly 100; Performance Should Have Been Canceled MUCH Earlier

Hail drifts cover a walkway at the Red Rocks
Amphitheatre near Denver Wednesday night
after the storm injured dozens

 Nearly 100 people were injured, including seven who needed hospitalization, when a hail storm struck the famed Red Rocks Amphitheatre near Denver Wednesday. 

This might be one the biggest hail storm injury events in U.S. history, the Washington Post reported. 

The show, featuring Louis Tomlinson, was stopped as hailstones, the biggest ones about the size of tennis balls, pelted the crowd. .

Video taken during the storm showed chaos. People screamed in pain as hail bruised their bodies.  After the storm, hail drifts several inches deep covered parts of the site. 

The concert will probably be rescheduled, but that rescheduling probably should have happened before people even began gathering for the show. 

True, I'm Monday morning quarterbacking, but the signs were there that potential danger loomed.

First of all, the Front Range of the Colorado Rockies are famous for the volatile weather around there. 

Even management at Red Rocks acknowledged this in a Tweet after the disaster. "....we're having a little talk with Mother Nature about this weather business at Red Rocks. Between a wind-whipped opening night wildfire, snow showers, torrential rains and hail, it's been a crazy six weeks in the foothills."

Large outdoor venues at least should have some experts on staff working with meteorologists to ensure public safety.  Summer is chock full of festivals like concerts, fairs and large gatherings. Summer is also known for its severe thunderstorms, high wind, hail and lightning, which can develop pretty quickly

Having an event you've looked forward to for months abruptly canceled due to weather just before it starts is a terrible bummer, to put in mildly.  But you have to consider that being injured or even dying at the show due to the weather just ain't worth it. 

And people have died during severe weather events at outdoor venues. One of the most memorable and tragic examples was in 2011, when a severe thunderstorm blew stage scaffolding and other large debris into a crowd awaiting a Sugarland concert. Seven people died and 58 were injured. 

STORMS LOOMED HOURS BEFORE

Concert organizers should be nimble on their feet. Should being the operative word. 

As early as 3:49 p.m. Wednesday local time, NOAA's Storm Prediction Center released a short-term forecast concerning a severe thunderstorm watch that was already in effect for the area. "Large hail, (some 2+ inches in diameter is the primary threat, though severe gusts may occur," the statement said. 

Professor Ben Alonzo, who, among many other things is a meteorologist and EMT, had a great thread about the incident on Twitter.

Radar images Alonzo shared showed several severe thunderstorm, including one that just barely missed Red Rocks not long before the show. 

The thunderstorm that deposited the hail on concertgoers arrived at the venue at around 9:20 p.m local time. A severe thunderstorm warning had been issued for the Red Rocks area about 20 minutes prior. 

The Washington Post said the severe thunderstorm warning was issued at 9:04 p.m., but the concert  venue didn't tell people to take shelter until 9:14 p.m. 

Of course, that's not a lot of time to send people to shelter before the storm hit. Apparently, people were also reluctant to get up and go to their cars.  They assumed the concern would resume once the storm passed, and they didn't want to lose their good seats.

Perhaps the concert should have been canceled at that initial severe thunderstorm warning, since nobody would then have the incentive to stay in their open air seats. 

Alonzo also points out a good outdoor venue should had an experienced meteorologist on staff who could have understood the danger from the storm before the official severe thunderstorm warning was issued. 

Moreover, lightning within nine miles of Red Rocks from numerous thunderstorms in the area started at around 7:15 p.m, WaPo reports.  Lightning can strike up to 15 miles away from the parent storm, so people were already in danger two hours before the hail.  

A good safety plan would have postponed or canceled the concert and told people to seek shelter by 7:30 p.m, when the lightning was underway. 

Of course, we don't have all the details yet of what happened and how decisions were made, so we'll see with updates.  

The City of Denver owns Red Rocks. I imagine lawsuits are inevitable. That the venue is owned by a municipality will probably complicated those legal proceedings. 

Video: Denver 7 collected clips of the storm at Red Rocks. Click on this link to view or if you see the image below, click on that: