A large tent collapsed during a Virginia church\u2019s 20th anniversary celebration on Friday evening, killing one person and injuring nearly two dozen others, officials said.<\/p>\n
Heavy rain, lightning and strong winds tore through Moneta, a small community about 124 miles (200 kilometers) southwest of Richmond, as the EastLake Community Church was holding an outdoor service, Shelley Basinger, a spokesperson for Bedford County, said in a statement. The group was in the process of leaving the event tent when it collapsed, according to Abbey Johnston, acting chief of Bedford County Fire and Rescue<\/p>\n
Eleven people were taken to the hospital and 11 others had minor injuries and were treated at the scene, Basinger said.<\/p>\n
\u201cInitially, I\u2019m told it was a very chaotic scene, trying to account for the individuals,\u201d Johnston told reporters.<\/p>\n
Officials rushed to rescue everyone inside the tent behind the church and move them to safety as the strong thunderstorm raged on, she said.<\/p>\n
Troy Keaton, the non-denominational church\u2019s senior pastor, said he had just walked up to the stage to tell the group to go to their cars when a gust of wind picked up the tent.<\/p>\n
\u201cSadly one of our dear brothers su\ufb00ered a fatal injury,\u201d he said in a statement on social media. \u201cOur hearts are broken for his precious family.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tent had seating for 1,500 people, according to officials, but it was not immediately clear how many were inside when it collapsed.<\/p>\n
No details were provided about the conditions of the people in the hospital.<\/p>\n
Officials are gathering evidence as they investigate the collapse, Johnston said.<\/p>\n
The tent had passed an inspection by the county\u2019s building inspections division three days earlier, according to Basinger.<\/p>\n
Gov. Abigail Spanberger said her team has been in close contact with the response crew on the ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am praying for the EastLake Community Church and all who are impacted, and we will continue to support the community during this difficult time,\u201d she said in a statement on social media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A large tent collapsed during a Virginia church\u2019s 20th anniversary celebration on Friday evening, killing one person and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[303252,51932,23,119616,793,3,2229,303250,303251,795,21,19,22,20,25,24,5148,2986],"class_list":["post-701355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-abbey-johnston","tag-abigail-spanberger","tag-america","tag-building-collapses","tag-general-news","tag-news","tag-religion","tag-shelley-basinger","tag-troy-keaton","tag-u-s-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-virginia","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}