Sudden Wind Fells Big Top; Scores of Circus Fans Hurt

Sudden gusts of wind collapsed a circus tent during a performance before about 1,000 spectators Saturday, sending tent poles and beams crashing down and injuring more than 40 people, witnesses and officials said.

“The grandstands were fairly full,” said Jack Le Duc, guest announcer for the Toby Tyler Circus. “A lion-and-tiger-taming act had just finished. . . . I saw one small stake at the end of the giant tent lift. Before I could notify anyone, the big beams began lifting up, and within seconds everything came crashing down.”

Police said that 16 of the injured were sent to St. Vincent Hospital in Green Bay, and three others were treated at the scene. Another 25 people were taken to St. Mary’s Hospital in Green Bay, a hospital spokeswoman said.

People Hit by Poles

The St. Mary’s Hospital spokeswoman said the most serious injuries appeared to be broken limbs, from people being hit by the falling poles.

The tent, which is 274 feet long, 134 feet wide and 42 feet high, held at least 1,000 people at the time of the collapse, Brown County sheriff’s spokesman George Weitzel said.

“The beams were swinging from side to side. We were sitting in the front row of the reserved section and hurried to the side so we wouldn’t get hit,” Le Duc said. “Many little kids with parents were crouched under the grandstand area. Some went back inside to take out one youngster at a time.”

A weather service spokesman said the wind velocity was probably less than 45 m.p.h. when the tent collapsed.

Elsewhere, the wind was stronger. Thunderstorms stirred up 100-m.p.h. gusts in South Dakota that flipped small planes on a runway and felled trees.

The storms, with heavy rain, hail and winds of up to 100 m.p.h., later moved into Minnesota and Wisconsin, authorities said.

At Parkston Airport in South Dakota, howling winds damaged planes, destroyed hangars and uprooted trees, but no injuries were reported.

In Minnesota, trees were downed in Coon Rapids, Blaine and Anoka, and trees and small signs were blown over in the St. Cloud area.