Balloonfest 1986: when Cleveland was colonised by balloons
Just because something has the best of intentions doesn’t always make it a good idea. Cleveland, Ohio, found this out the hard way when all they really wanted to do was raise some money for charity.
Balloonfest 1986 was a perfect example of this. A fundraising event for the Cleveland branch of United Way, a non-profit organisation that essentially tries to act as a centralised bank for other charities. They raise money via grassroots campaigns, normally arranged in workplaces and schools, before distributing it to more specific charities based on need. For six months, a man with the unfortunate name of Treb Haining began planning his way of raising funds for United Way.
He was inspired by an event the previous year. To mark the 30th anniversary of Disneyland, the Disney corporation set a world record by releasing the largest number of balloons at once that any group had ever released. Just over a million balloons had gone up in the sky, and Haining’s original vision was to double that. Setting a goal of two million balloons released from downtown Cleveland’s Public Square. With such an ambitious project set, all hands needed to be on deck, and Haining received a lot of help for the project.
A rectangular construct the size of a city block was constructed from which all the balloons would be released. The money was raised by school kids asking people to donate one dollar for every two balloons. By the week of the event, enough money had been raised to cover 1.4 million balloons, short of Haining’s vision but still comfortably beating the world record. This seemed to be the only blight on what was set to be a wonderful day.
Then the actual day showed up, and oh no.
What happened to all the balloons?!
The date was set for September 27th. The idea being that the weather would be warm enough for people to come and watch, but cool enough for the balloons to be carried safely into the sky, where, and this is important, people thought that they would pop and disintegrate in the atmosphere. If you’re reading this and thinking “that’s not how plastic works”, then congratulations, you have a more complete understanding of basic science than anyone involved in Balloonfest ’86 did.
Thus, the day came, and so did, unexpectedly, a rainstorm. Thus, the launch was brought ahead by a few hours and at least initially, everything seemed to be hunky dory. A crowd of 100,000 people turned out to watch the launch, and they did as they intended to do, breaking the Guinness World Record for the biggest balloon launch ever. Then a cold front of air came over Lake Erie, pushed away by the storm and thus, 1.4 million latex balloons descended upon Cleveland.
It’s a funny image, but the consequences were dire. A nearby airport had to close for half an hour, grounding all flights and preventing all arrivals due to the presence of over a million balloons clogging up the airspace. The balloons got into the waters of Lake Erie, clogged up highways and caused traffic accidents. Most tragically of all, two fishermen who’d gone out on the lake the previous day had been reported as missing. The presence of the balloons in the sky and in the water meant that no search and rescue mission could go ahead, and their drowned bodies simply washed onto the shores of Lake Erie on September 29th.
Thanks to the millions of dollars of damage the fiasco caused, Balloonfest ’86 actually lost its organisers a lot of money. But hey, they got that Guinness World Record. Hope it’s worth it.