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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show for those interested in the big and bizarre

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Speaker 1: moments of history. I'm Gay Bluzier, and today we're taking

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Speaker 1: a closer look at balloon Fest eight six, an ill

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Speaker 1: fated event that proved the road to hell really is

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Speaker 1: paved with good intentions and with hundreds of thousands of

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Speaker 1: wet balloons. The day was September. A fundraising stunt created

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Speaker 1: chaos and confusion by flooding Cleveland, Ohio with one point

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Speaker 1: five million balloons. The organizer's intention was for the helium

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Speaker 1: filled balloons to float up in a way and then

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Speaker 1: to gradually descend as they slowly deflated. More than a

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Speaker 1: hundred thousand people came down town to watch the balloon release,

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Speaker 1: and at first they got all the fun and spectacle

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Speaker 1: they had hoped for. But as the weather worsened, a

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Speaker 1: cold front combined with rain began to push the balloons

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Speaker 1: back down while they were still inflated. The severe storm

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Speaker 1: then swept the balloons all through the streets and waterways

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Speaker 1: of the unsuspecting city. Balloon Fest eighty six had started

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Speaker 1: out as a light hearted event, but it was about

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Speaker 1: to become a full blown disaster. The mid twentieth century

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Speaker 1: hadn't been kind to the city of Cleveland, with rampant

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Speaker 1: inflation and a declining steel industry laying waste to its economy.

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Speaker 1: But in the summer of nineteen eighty six, the city

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Speaker 1: on the shore of Lake Erie scored a major win

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Speaker 1: when it was chosen as the permanent home of the

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Speaker 1: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Officials hoped the new

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Speaker 1: attraction would boost tourism and help sell the idea that

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Speaker 1: Cleveland was an up and coming city. Balloon Fest was

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Speaker 1: conceived as part of that rebranding effort, a way to

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Speaker 1: show that Cleveland was an exciting place, not the dreary

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Speaker 1: city on a lake that people thought it was. Surprisingly, though,

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Speaker 1: the event wasn't the city's idea. Instead, it was proposed

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Speaker 1: as a fundraising event by the local branch of the

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Speaker 1: United Way, one of the world's largest privately funded charities.

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Speaker 1: Instead of selling T shirts or hosting another fun run,

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Speaker 1: the group solicited one dollar sponsorships for every balloon released.

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Speaker 1: That may seem like an odd way to raise money,

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Speaker 1: and it kind of is, but at the time it

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Speaker 1: was at least topical. The previous year, Disneyland had set

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Speaker 1: a Guinness World record by releasing one million balloons to

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Speaker 1: celebrate the theme park's thirtieth anniversary. The United Way wanted

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Speaker 1: to break that record, thus proving once and for all

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Speaker 1: that Cleveland was even more fun than the happiest place

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Speaker 1: on Earth. If Disney had launched a million balloons, then

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Speaker 1: Cleveland would release two million. It took six months to

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Speaker 1: plan and prepare for the biggest simultaneous balloon launch in history.

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Speaker 1: Cleveland's Public Square was chosen as the launch site to

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Speaker 1: allow for the largest number of spectators possible. A special

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Speaker 1: platform the size of a city block was set up

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Speaker 1: there to contain the balloons. It rose three stories high

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Speaker 1: and featured a large net ceiling to keep the balloons

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Speaker 1: from floating away prematurely. Nearly three thousand volunteers, most of

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Speaker 1: whom were local students, worked overnight and into the morning

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Speaker 1: filling balloons with helium. Their job was made much harder

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Speaker 1: by bad weather. Although the original plan had called for

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Speaker 1: two million balloons, a fast moving storm system the night

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Speaker 1: before the event released some of those balloons ahead of schedule.

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Speaker 1: To make matters worse. The storm was expected to worsen

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Speaker 1: by the late afternoon of September. This left organizers with

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Speaker 1: a difficult choice. They could either cancel the event or

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Speaker 1: launched the balloons earlier than planned to try to beat

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Speaker 1: the storm. In the end, they chose the latter option,

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Speaker 1: settling for roughly one point five million balloons instead of

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Speaker 1: the full two million, and so at one fifty pm

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Speaker 1: that afternoon, a colorful swarm of balloons rose into the

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Speaker 1: sky above Cleveland, wrapping around the city's terminal tower and

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Speaker 1: drawing huge cheers from the crowd. It was a stunning spectacle,

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Speaker 1: as expected, but also a little ominous, kind of like

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Speaker 1: a multicolored mushroom cloud rising over the city. Of course,

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Speaker 1: no one on the ground that day would have connected

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Speaker 1: the cheerful site with anything so threatening or dangerous, at

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Speaker 1: least not yet. The organizers of balloon Fest understood that

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Speaker 1: what goes up must come down and chose to use

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Speaker 1: biodegradable balloons for that very reason. They claimed the environmental

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Speaker 1: impact of the event would be minimal, as the balloons

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Speaker 1: would eventually deflate or pop once they reached a enough altitude.

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Speaker 1: Then they would simply fall back to Earth, where they

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Speaker 1: would disintegrate over a matter of weeks. However, the cold,

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Speaker 1: rainy weather through a wrench in that plan. Pretty soon

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Speaker 1: motorists and pedestrians were enveloped in a cloud of colorful spheres.

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Speaker 1: Some drivers were so distracted they ran right off the road,

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Speaker 1: while others swerved to avoid the falling mass and wound

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Speaker 1: up plowing right into another car. Neil Zurcher, one of

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Speaker 1: the reporters who covered the event that day, described the

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Speaker 1: scene on the ground, saying, quote, we drove down the

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Speaker 1: shore way and it was like a multicolored river down

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Speaker 1: the road. Motorists were running into each other, running in defenses.

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Speaker 1: Then Burke Lakefront Airport was even more of a mess.

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Speaker 1: The runway was covered with balloons. Both the shoreway and

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Speaker 1: the airport wound up having to close temporarily so that

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Speaker 1: a bulldozer could be brought in to clear the balloons

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Speaker 1: off the runways and out of the roads. Still, humans

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Speaker 1: weren't the only one is affected by the floating obstacles.

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Speaker 1: One massive balloons landed on a horse pasture in Medina County, Ohio.

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Speaker 1: According to the owner, some of the Arabian horses were

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Speaker 1: so spooked by the falling balloons that they scrambled to

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Speaker 1: get away and wound up toppling into one another, causing

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Speaker 1: numerous injuries in the process. However, the most tragic impact

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Speaker 1: of balloon Fest eight six was its interference with a

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Speaker 1: search and rescue operation on the waters of Lake Erie.

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Speaker 1: Two local men, Raymond Broderick and Bernard Solzer, had gone

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Speaker 1: out fishing the previous day and hadn't come back. They

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Speaker 1: were reported missing, and on the morning of September authorities

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Speaker 1: located their boat, which had been capsized by the storm.

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Speaker 1: The Coast Guard was searching for the men by helicopter

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Speaker 1: and by boat throughout the day when a torrent of

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Speaker 1: balloons started raining down on the lake. Visibility got so

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Speaker 1: bad that the helicopter pilot was forced to land, and

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Speaker 1: those in the boat didn't fare any better. It's like

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Speaker 1: trying to find a needle in a haystack. One of

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Speaker 1: them said, you're looking for more or less a head

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Speaker 1: or an orange life jacket, and here you have a

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Speaker 1: couple hundred thousand orange balloons. It's just hard to decipher

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Speaker 1: which is which. The Coast Guard called off its search

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Speaker 1: two days later, and the bodies of the missing men

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Speaker 1: washed ashore not long after. There's a good chance that

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Speaker 1: if the lake hadn't been littered with balloons, authorities may

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Speaker 1: have been able to reach the fishermen in time. For

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Speaker 1: that reason, the wife of one of the men later

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Speaker 1: sued the United Way of Cleveland and the events organizers,

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Speaker 1: eventually settling out of court for an undisclosed sum. If

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Speaker 1: there's any bright side to balloon Fest six, and that's

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Speaker 1: a pretty big if, it's that the event did break

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Speaker 1: the record for the biggest simultaneous balloon launch. The official

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Speaker 1: count was one million, four hundred and twenty nine thousand,

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Speaker 1: six hundred and forty three balloons launched. However, even that

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Speaker 1: small victory was tainted by at the event's unfortunate outcome.

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Speaker 1: While the achievement was noted in the edition of the

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Speaker 1: Guinness Book of World Records, the publication quickly retired the

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Speaker 1: category out of concern for public safety. The other possible

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Speaker 1: silver lining is that balloon Fest did raise a good

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Speaker 1: deal of money for the United Way, somewhere in the

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Speaker 1: neighborhood of a million dollars. Of course, the Lion's share

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Speaker 1: of those proceeds likely went to settling the various balloon

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Speaker 1: related lawsuits that cropped up in the wake of the event,

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Speaker 1: meaning that anyway you look at it, balloon Fest eight

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Speaker 1: six was a total bust. I'm Gay Blusier and hopefully

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Speaker 1: you now know a little more about history today than

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Speaker 1: you did yesterday. If you want to keep up with

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Speaker 1: the show, you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and

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Speaker 1: Instagram at t d i HC Show Special Thanks to

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Speaker 1: friend of the show and noted balloon hater kylen Iverson

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Speaker 1: for suggesting the topic of today's episode. And if anyone

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Speaker 1: else has a historical topic they'd like to hear covered

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Speaker 1: on the show, don't be shy. You can send your

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Speaker 1: suggestions to this Day at I heart media dot com.

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Speaker 1: Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thank

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Speaker 1: you for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow

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Speaker 1: for another day in History Class