Severe thunderstorm causes bounce house to go airborne in Alabama

A severe thunderstorm in northern Alabama on Saturday interrupted a gathering in the town of Hillsboro, catching attendees off guard and forcing them to run for shelter. 

The thunderstorm erupted around 1 p.m. local time and produced significant rainfall, cloud-to-ground lightning and damaging wind gusts.

Joshua Cofield was one of the attendees and said he was not expecting to see such a powerful thunderstorm.

“It was just a small green spot [on radar]; no more than three minutes later, the wind picked up, and that was the result,” Cofield said, referring to his video.

In the cellphone video, families can be seen running for cover, and a large bounce house goes airborne from right to left across the gathering area.

No one appeared to be on the inflatable as it somersaulted among collapsing tents and food trucks.

Cofield said some attendees appeared to have received scrapes after a tent collapsed onto people, but all were able to make it out of the mangled mess.

Local authorities did not report any significant injuries following the storm, which caused tree damage and power lines to fall in neighboring communities.

According to the Storm Prediction Center, the thunderstorms developed along a boundary ahead of a cold front. 

Forecasters issued a Severe Thunderstorm Watch later in the afternoon for communities in Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. 

The thunderstorms were capable of producing wind gusts of up to 70 mph and hail at least the size of ping-pong balls.

The bounce house was at least the second inflatable to go airborne due to sudden wind gusts in the past few weeks. 

At the start of the month, a 5-year-old boy was killed, and at least one other child was significantly injured after an inflatable bounce house became dislodged from its stakes during a Southern Maryland Blue Crabs baseball game.

County officials reported that the bounce house was lifted 15 to 20 feet into the air by a sudden gust of wind, causing children to fall out.

A study by experts at the University of Georgia found that nearly 500 people have been injured and 28 killed in bounce house-related incidents since 2000.

However, researchers cautioned that these figures are likely an undercount because of poor documentation.