Severe weather has destroyed tents at two events in as many months. Back in December, powerful winds took out a massive tent at the Virgin Galactic space ship launch out in Mojave, destroying a $200,000 tent owned by Town & Country.
Now, just last week, more tents went down in Scottsdale, Arizona, where the Russo and Steele Auction was under way. Two tents belonging to Classic Party Rentals were destroyed on Thursday, but no one was injured as most people were inside an additional main tent. Many expensive cars were destroyed or damaged.
"The weather conditions were tornado-like conditions, and that's what caused it to go down," said Classic's Christine Merser on Monday morning. "We had crews that arrived immediately following the collapse and were on site assisting and getting everything back together again. Thank God everyone was fine." Merser confirmed Classic also had crews on site at the time of the incident, and that the company was insured.
AZFamily.com reported that between 5,000 and 10,000 people were attending the auction at the time of the collapse, and quoted an attendee saying, "You could see the whole tent lift and shred." Firefighters searched the site for potential victims, and hazmat crews responded to assess the situation after generators and gas heaters blew over.
