Great NYS Fair closes, reopens and closes again Wednesday due to flooding
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The Great New York State Fair closed early at 6 p.m. Wednesday as a result of heavy rain flooding the grounds, syracuse.com reported.
Almost two inches of rain fell over two hours on Wednesday morning, leading to an initial closure at 11:30 a.m. as the fairgrounds are prone to flooding. The fair reopened around 12:35 p.m. as the rain and flooding subsided, before closing again five hours earlier than planned after a second storm.
The National Weather Service issued a flood watch until 8 a.m. Thursday across central New York, along with a tornado warning until 11 p.m. Wednesday. If needed, the fair will open shelter-in-place areas for those camping and staying in RVs on the grounds, syracuse.com reported. At 8:41 p.m., the NWS issued a tornado warning for Onondaga County until 9:15 p.m.
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Parking lots at the fairgrounds stopped letting cars in at 4:30 p.m. and the fair’s entry gates closed to new visitors at 5:15 p.m. To plan around the closure, concerts were moved up, with Priscella Block performing at 4:30 p.m. and Tori Kelly at 5 p.m, the fair announced in a Facebook post.
In 1998, a storm during the NYS Fair caused three deaths, injured 10 people and caused extreme damage to the fairgrounds, forcing a closure on the fair’s last day.
Fair officials have not yet announced if the fair will operate with normal hours on Thursday. However, its Facebook post read, “We apologize for the inconvenience, and hope to see you back here tomorrow!”
