Stage Collapses at the Big Valley Jamboree
One Dead - 21 Injured
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Aug 2009
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July was the month we took our three granddaughters on their annual RV holiday and then the following week we took our grandsons. As a result of this hectic schedule and some other events the newsletter is late coming out.
This year we took the granddaughters to Jasper National Park and had a really great time. The amount of wildlife was quite amazing. We were parked in a forest with huge open spaces between the RV's.
 We had a herd of elk come and park themselves right in our backyard. Literally! Ten of them bedded down no more than 10-20 yards from the motor home. In addition to that we saw a coyote in the campground, deer & moose. We went to Miette Hot Springs and there were mountain goats in the campground walking around the cars and some of them would go down on their knees and put their heads under the back bumper and were licking at the underside of the cars. Some cars they bypassed while others got a lot of attention. I have no idea what they were licking and why some cars got attention and others didn't but it was quite a sight to behold.
 At the conclusion on this trip we went to the Big Valley Jamboree in Camrose, AB. It is a huge country and western music festival that brings together the top music acts in North America with more than 100,000 people over four days. The big headliner this year was to be Tim McGraw but unfortunately he and many other performers never got a chance to perform. On Saturday at 6 PM a huge unpredicted wind storm hit the event and collapsed the stage, killing one and injuring 71. The storm itself was predicted but in front of the storm there was a huge plow wind that was NOT anticipated. The winds hit speeds of 120+km per hour. The stage crews were in the process of prepping the stage for the anticipated storm and were lowering advertising banners to allow the wind to blow thru and other safety preparations. The storm and its awesome power arrived much earlier than anticipated. Judy and I were getting ready to go for dinner close to the stage when the storm hit. One minute there was light wind and the next second huge winds were blowing everything all over the place. Prior to the wall of wind arriving we ran around trying to salvage awnings, lawn chairs, tables and whatever was blowing around and stuffing them under RV's. There are about 5,000 RV's there. When the wall of wind hit you could hardly see due to the dust and sand that was flying all over the place. Then the rain and lightning, thunder and incredible wind. Our group had a large tent set up for get-togethers and about a dozen of us spent the next two hours holding it down trying to keep it from blowing away and damaging RV's and perhaps lives. It was an amazing experience to go thru.
Unfortunately a 35 year old mother was killed by a falling speaker when the stage collapsed. This stage setup is absolutely huge. It was brought to Camrose by a company that specializes in staging events such as this. They have done this for the Jamboree for many years and have a great reputation. However, no one can predict the weather. The remainder of the show was cancelled.
Our daughter and family were enroute to a "meet and greet" where they were going to meet Kevin Costner prior to him going on stage that evening. Had they been a few minutes earlier the stage would have toppled backwards onto the "meet and greet" area. They ran for cover and got into their vehicle which just happened to be close by.
There has been a LOT of freaky winds this year. We were parked at my daughters when a wind came up and toppled a two story play structure onto my van. This structure is HUGE and I can't imagine how strong the wind was. It went thru the side window, missed the roof and hit a picnic table that was stored behind the seat. This stopped it from tearing the door of the van right off. An inch or two either way and it would have been a real mess. We were just getting ready to head down the road on our three week RV trip when this happened.
We took our two grandsons on their RV trip two days after the Camrose Jamboree and had a wonderful time with them. This is the first year the weatherman didn't cooperate. We had a lot of rain and generally cooler conditions. It was still a lot of fun. We ended up at Judys' family reunion where the boys and all the family had a great time. The weatherman cooperated for those two days. We hope your summer has been less eventful than ours. We're looking forward to the balance of August and hope it's a little less hectic. Safe travels to all of you.
Ken & Judy Wilton Owners and Fulltime RVers  |
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