A tornado touched down in downtown Salt Lake City, UT and the Outdoor Retailer Show.
The only tornado to be recorded to touch down in SLC city limits in history. Allen Crandy, professional booth builder from Las Vegas, was the sole fatality, with a dozen others critically injured.
Here are comments from industry people who were on the ground nearby on August 11, 1999.
I was working from the show office (in the North Lobby of the SPCC) in a glass-enclosed room near the crash doors that open onto South Temple. I felt the tremor rumble and then my ears popped, like I was in an airplane dropping steeply. I went to the doors where a small crowd was gathering to see a river of debris moving horizontally over the street… concrete blocks, trees, trash cans and other heavy objects tumbled like dust-bunnies from a broom. I dreaded the scene I would encounter once it passed.
Doug and I were on the lake just out of town demoing a new, high performance touring kayak, the Synergy, designed by John Abbenhouse of Northwest Kayaks. We saw black clouds build over the City then noticed a very dark area from the sky to the ground. Cell phones started buzzing at the lake and we quickly learned that a tornado had touched down at the show.
The effect on us during the next couple of days at the show was to place orders preferentially with companies in the outer tent area which had been especially hard hit. The mood was grim, but almost all of the vendors bounced bask as well as was possible, usually without literature and some of their product samples.
Joanne and Doug Schwartz, then owners of Southwind Kayak Center in CA.
I was driving into Salt Lake City from California and the sky was green. We were staying at a hotel near the airport and when we arrived it was pouring rain. As I was checking in I saw on the TV (new broadcast) that the tent where we were going to set up our booth was destroyed by the tornado. We missed it by about an hour, thank goodness.
The next day we got in line to share a booth with a company inside the Salt Palace. NRS was nice enough to help us out. Outdoor Retailer refunded all of our booth money, which was amazing. I heard and got to share many stories from those who went through the worst of it. I will never forget the devastation and was lucky not to be in the middle of it!
I remember it was the first time meeting you, Kenji, and what would become a long friendship. Tom Mendl and I were outside of the pavillion area where all the crates were, unpacking something when it got intensely quiet and then suddenly loud, and lightening, and like being in a weird air bubble. The big white tent panels were starting to blow up – pop pop pop into the sky, and someone got whacked on the leg with a big piece of wood and was bleeding. I think we knew this was going to be really bad and we ran for shelter in some back doors of the show. I remember being really scared thinking of what was going to happen to everyone and everything and when would be an okay time to go help. Joan Alvarez was there, and Michael Hodgson, and I was wondering if they were okay? You know how tight our tribe is. I also have family in SLC, so I was worried about them – and worried that they were concerned for me. Then, I think we all felt pretty lucky after … but it was awful feeling all around – seeing all the kayaks on top of one another and all the set up that had been done ruined. But we ended up rallying together and having a show! I’m pretty sure Tom went and helped the man who got his leg injured outside, I “lost” him for a while so it was good when we found each other again. We’d already been through the Malden Mills/Polartec fire together and weeks later we said, “what next? locusts?” It just was all surreal.