Fair has rain delay

By MEGAN SHERIDAN Staff Reporter | Posted: Friday, August 20, 2010

Many areas of the Dodge County Fairgrounds had branches down and some flooding after the first round of storms that rolled through the county Friday at approximately 5 p.m.

Into every fair a little rain must fall, or so it seems.

The Dodge County Fair was put on hold Friday evening as the county was put under a thunderstorm warning and severe weather moved through at approximately 5 p.m.

The high winds and torrential rain brought the county fair to a standstill for nearly 30 minutes.

People were urged to either leave the grounds or stay in their vehicles as the storm approached and asked not to take shelter underneath tents.

The storm tore down small to medium sized branches, collapsed the American Legion beer tent, tore down smaller vendor tents and caused flash flooding in some areas of the grounds.

The main storm passed through shortly after 5 p.m. and vendors began to open back up again to feed patrons as a second smaller storm came through at approximately 6:30 p.m.

The Dodge County Fair office received an almost constant stream of phone calls from people possibly coming to the fair and visits from fair patrons to see if Tesla, the headliner for Friday evening, would perform. Other activities, like those in Radio Park, were canceled for the evening.

The fair board met to determine whether or not it would be safe to keep the grounds open and have Tesla play while workers went through the grounds making repairs to damaged tents and fixing electrical issues.

Sharon Kiel, fair secretary, made an announcement on the grounds shortly after 7:30 p.m.

"They want to put the show on for you, so please hang around," she said of the band Tesla.

The band took the stage a little more than an hour after the scheduled start time.

The weather forecast for today and Sunday is for sunny skies with temperatures in the 80s.