Record rainfall creates challenges at air show

Severe thunderstorms and the threat of hail had Cold Lake Air Show volunteers scrambling Friday to tear down the tents and other structures they had just spent the last two days setting up.

“It made for a really long day,” said Maj. David Janssen, the air show’s director of logistics.

All aircraft set up on the ramp for display had to be placed in hangers Friday night. Since there was only so much room, some of the big-wing planes had to be moved to other airports.

The C-17 took off to Saskatoon, the Buffalo was sent to Medicine Hat., the Aurora, which was en route to Cold Lake, diverted back to its base in Comox, B.C., and the Sea King stayed hunkered down in Edmonton overnight, as it hadn’t made its way to the air show yet.

The storm brought a recordbreaking rainfall to Cold Lake for the month of July — about 65-70 millimetres hit the ground.

The weather cleared up overnight, and volunteers had to be up at 5 a.m. Saturday to set up tents again before the air show gates opened at 9 a.m.

“The rain really created a swamp out here,” said Maj. Kael Rennie.

Logistics volunteers had to scramble to lay down more than 300 pallet floorboards to create walkways that would keep people from getting muddy.

“Thankfully, we had those built,” said Rennie. “We weathered the storm.”

Before the storm hit Friday, two F-18 pilots did a flypast at the Full Throttle Street Festival in downtown Cold Lake where Big Sugar took to the stage in pouring rain.

The weather cleared up Saturday and the air show went off without a hitch, but it rained again Sunday morning and a low cloud ceiling meant the Sky Hawks, the Canadian Forces Parachute Team, didn’t have the height to do its jump.

“The Sky Hawks hate having to go out the airplane the normal way like the rest of us would exit a plane, by not jumping,” the air show announcer told the crowd.

And indeed the weather held out so the rest of the show could go on without a hitch. Planes that took to the sky Sunday afternoon included a North American Aerospace Defence Command-themed flypast, which included the CF-18, the CF16 Falcon and the F-15 Eagle, as the air show was marking 60 years of NORAD.

About 20,000 people are estimated to have attended the show.