Published: July 20,2015
The incident happened Saturday morning at the Balloonfest in Waterford, Wisconsin, the Journal Times reported, when a strong gust of wind swept one of the balloons up into the air. There were two men inside the balloon's basket at the time it became untethered and went airborne, the report added.
"It was a fluke what happened but nobody could stop it — some people [are] a little shaken up from it," Amber Riley-Eckman, a spokesperson for Waterford Fire Department and the Chamber of Commerce, told Fox6Now.com.
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Several people suffered minor injuries as a group worked to pull the hot air balloon back to the ground, and a couple of nearby vehicles were damaged in the ordeal, the Journal Times also said. But the two men inside the balloon's basket were unharmed, and one remarked that their ride looked a lot more turbulent than it was.
Festival director Ken Walter told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that the balloon portion of the festival had been canceled due to the inclement weather, and the wind gust hit when the balloons were being deflated. All of the balloons were tied to the ground with ropes, he added, but the ropes on one balloon broke as the wind gusted, tossing it into the air in a matter of seconds.
"A line of thunderstorms passed mainly north of western Racine County, Wisconsin, Saturday morning. However, the squall line's gust front is what likely lead to the balloon mishap," said weather.com meteorologist Jon Erdman. "There were no other reports of damaging winds from that line of storms in the Waterford area Saturday morning. The area was hit by a second cluster of storms Saturday afternoon with a peak gust to 44 mph at Tichigan Lake, near Waterford."
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