Growing up we were pretty obsessed with the Guinness Book of World Records, scouring the pages to see who was setting what world record and which ones we thought we might be able to break one day. Folks in Cleveland, Ohio had a similar way of thinking and decided to break the current world record of the number of balloons launched at once, held by Disneyland at the time. What started out as a fundraiser stunt for the United Way quickly turned into a tragedy.
The event was to be known as Balloonfest and the goal was simple: raise money for United Way and get Cleveland some much-needed attention. The city had, after all, undergone a fair amount of cleaning and was trying to change its image. After just six months a large net structure had been created to contain all the balloons, over 2,500 volunteers would be coming to blow up balloons, and this event had gone from concept to reality real quick.
Unfortunately, the morning of the balloon launch also brought on the promise of an incoming storm, so the event was pushed to 1:50 PM local time. The balloons were released, the crowd went wild, and for a split second Cleveland was no longer the butt of jokes, but the hero of the story having broken a Guinness World Record.
Unfortunately, the victory was short-lived.
In theory, the balloons were supposed to stay in the air until they deflated, then they would fall right back down. But remember that storm that was rolling in? The cold front combined with the rain caused the balloons to descend while still deflated. Now you may be thinking: okay, so what’s the big deal? They’re just balloons! We’ll tell you. It was such a sight to see that people on the road were getting distracted causing a number of wrecks, streets and waterways were clogged with balloons, the airport was forced to close down due to balloons being on the runways, and balloons were landing in pastures home to horses that were getting spooked by them causing all kinds of injuries, and what could possibly be worse than all of this you ask? The day before Balloonfest, two men, Raymond Broderick and Bernard Sulzer had gone out fishing on the waters of Lake Erie and had never returned home. Worried, their families had reported them missing and authorities were actively on the search for them. Unfortunately, millions of balloons were impeding the search making it nearly impossible for authorities. The Coast Guard suspended their search and two days later the bodies of the missing men washed ashore.
The wife of one of the fishermen sued the United Way as well as the organizers of the event and settled on an undisclosed amount.
And while technically the city of Cleveland did set the record for the Biggest Simultaneous Balloon Launch, it only appeared in the 1988 print edition of the Guinness Book of World Records and the publication has since retired the category due to safety concerns.