Why You Shouldn't Drop 1.5 Million Balloons at Once

The story you will know now is basically the recipe for a disaster. It all started in 1986 in Cleveland, Ohio, when some people came up with the idea of ​​beating a world record for the largest number of helium-filled balloons at the same time.

Locals were thrilled with the idea and it was not difficult for United Way of Cleveland-sponsored Ballonfest to pull together the strength of hundreds of volunteers who together filled an incredible 1.5 million helium balloons - the previous record was 1.2 million.

It turns out that the idea, which had a poetic background and the best possible intentions, ended in tragedy. The sheer number of balloons ultimately killed two people and caused millions of dollars in damages.

The tent at Cleveland Public Square began to be balloon-filled on September 27, and when the net was released and the balloons released, the entire city was covered with an absurd amount of red, blue, white and yellow bladders, from afar, they looked like confetti flying over the region.

Went wrong

The balloons were released at 1:50 pm, and what was supposed to be a charity event ended up causing immense damage. The problem was the arrival of a storm that pushed balloons back to the ground, creating chaos on the roads and at the local airport.

Just to give you an idea, one of the people who sued the event was a farm owner who had his horses injured. The animals were frightened by the arrival of the absurd amount of balloons and ended up getting injured - the compensation here was $ 100, 000.

The same day, the coastguard was searching for two missing sailors, but the balloons simply disrupted the operation as they prevented the flow of helicopters - the two men eventually died, which probably would not have happened if the searches had not been discontinued. .

Balloons have been reported to have been seen even in Canada, as many of them were directed to the side of Lake Erie. The fact is that although the sight of the release of the balloons was beautiful, the consequences of the act definitely did not come out as expected.

According to meteorologist Nick Wiltgen, this kind of tragedy is unlikely to happen today because we better understand atmospheric events and have easy access to technologies that inform us about them.

In the case of the missing men who died, the searchers reported that they had great difficulty finding the toppled boat, which was eventually covered with balloons. When the Coast Guard finally made it to the boat, it could not find the crash victims in the balloons.