Tragedy at the Indiana State Fair

 It was as if time stood still for a brief minute inside our newsroom once we heard about the stage collapse at the state fair. The silence quickly erupted into chaos as Twitter lit up with unconfirmed reports about what people were seeing. 

I initially pictured a stage collapse, like only a stage literally collapsing. I never in my wildest dreams envisioned the entire set and rigging of the stage collapsing. In real-time, there was no way to distinguish just how serious a tragedy this was until video clips started coming in. 

This is by far the biggest regional story we have covered since launching in April here at ABC 57 News. It is personal, of course, because it is our state and our state fair, we also know that a lot of people from Michiana would be down there attending the concert. 

Early on, we heard about dozens injured and at least three people dead, but the reports were coming in so fast and mostly on Twitter. I typically like to get as much confirmed information in a situation like this before posting it on our own media platforms, but that isn't always possible. In this day and age when so many people are on social media networks and can listen to police scanners many viewers becoming roving reporters. It was posted on our page by a viewer that three people had died -- that was when I went ahead and posted what we were also hearing, even though we knew for about 20 minutes but couldn't get anyone to tell us for sure. 

It is just unreal how unfair life can be, how fast a good time and become tragic and just how destructive the weather can be. 

No doubt, it is going to be a sleepless night tonight and my thoughts are with those in Indianapolis.