WASHINGTON COURT HOUSE — There has been a good bit of weather this week during the Fayette County Fair.
The tractor pull, scheduled for Tuesday evening at the grandstand, had to be cancelled because of rain.
Thursday evening, Fayette County was under a severe thunderstorm warning, as well as a tornado warning.
This caused the fair to close earlier than the scheduled time of 11 p.m.
The Record-Herald spoke with Fayette County Agricultural Society President, Dr. Bob Schwartz.
“What we did, at 9:35 or 9:40 last night when the severe storm warnings and tornado warning were in effect, we closed the midway and basically shut down the fair,” Schwartz said. “As far as we can tell, there was no damage (at the fairgrounds).”
“To err on the side of caution, we just wanted to shut everything down and send people home because of the severe storm warnings,” Schwartz said. “We told everybody to clear the midway and we had various places here on the grounds. The campground people went to the extension office. We tried to get everybody into a secure building.”
“We had people go to the schoolhouse, the sheriff’s command post, various places,” Schwartz said. “We didn’t want to take any chances, so we just shut it down.”
“We have great forecasts for (Friday and Saturday),” Schwartz said.
According to weather.com (The Weather Channel’s website), Saturday’s forecast locally is for mostly sunny skies with a high reaching 80 degrees and a 10 percent chance of rain.
Also on Thursday night in Fayette County, lightning struck a wheat stubble field off of Blue and Danville roads near State Route 38 and I-71. The lightning strike caused a significant field fire, according to authorities.
The fire reportedly started around 9:25 p.m. and local fire departments were able to get it under control about an hour later.
