Stage-collapse victim known for community work

The Lloydminster, Alta., woman killed when a stage collapsed at a country music festival in Camrose on Saturday was remembered Monday as an active community volunteer.

Donna Teresa Moore, 35, was killed when an enormous speaker toppled and fell on her as a severe windstorm destroyed the main stage at the annual Big Valley Jamboree early Saturday evening.

Moore, who worked as a marketing assistant for the Lloydminster Chamber of Commerce, was described Monday as a friendly and outgoing person who was active in her community.

"She was well known as a marketing assistant for the Chamber, but she was also well known for a lot of the other volunteer work that she did in the community," Pat Tenney, the chamber's executive director, told CBC News.

"She volunteered with Big Brothers and Big Sisters and Habitat for Humanity, and there's probably others that I'm not even aware of."

Tenney said when she heard about the storm, she called Moore's home to check if she was all right and learned of her death.

Moore, a mother of two children, was a talented photographer, Tenney said.

Lloydminster is located on the Alberta-Saskatchewan border. It is about 250 kilometres northeast of Camrose.

Survivors recall close calls

Camrose police said about 75 other people were injured in the windstorm, which began shortly before 6 p.m. MT Saturday.

Those who survived the storm recalled a number of close calls as "plow winds" gusting upward of 120 km/h tore through the stage.

Gerard Kulcsar said he frantically searched for his nine-year-old daughter, Sydney, who was in the bleachers when the structure suddenly came down.

"I saw the stage collapse, and I didn't know she had made it off already," Kulcsar said. "It was two hours of chaos trying to find her."

A family friend grabbed the girl and both ran for the stairway, ducking pillars that fell within metres of them.

"I felt nervous, and I was worried about if my mom and dad were still outside and if they were OK," Sydney said.

Chris Cameron said she struggled to free her 12-year-old son from the wreckage.

"I was kind of on top of him, and I kind of got out and then tried to fight to get him out," she said.

Cameron and her son sustained injuries and were both treated in hospital.

Too little time to react, promoter says

Concert organizers from Panhandle Productions Ltd. said the wind blew in so quickly they had little time to react.

"Our office received a call at 5:55 [p.m. MT] that a severe windstorm was heading directly at our venue," promoter Larry Werner told reporters on Sunday. "At that time, I ran for the stage from our production office."

But by the time he tried to warn everyone, Werner said, the stage had already come crashing down.

"Over 17 years, our team has shut this concert down three times," he said.

"The procedures followed for those weather fronts were the same as the procedures followed yesterday."

The windstorm even caught weather forecasters off guard. Environment Canada did not issue a storm warming for Camrose until the storm hit.

"You know, we weren't really seeing a lot of the damaging winds being reported until around that time," said Yvonne Bilan Wallace, a meteorologist with Environment Canada.

Concert organizers announced Sunday morning the party was officially over and cancelled the remaining acts, including headliner Tim McGraw.

5 workers hurt

The site has been turned over to the Alberta Occupational Health and Safety Branch, which is conducting its own investigation into the incident.

Investigators with the branch are looking into circumstances behind a number of worker injuries at the festival.

Five workers were hurt, four of whom were employees of Premier Global Productions, the company in charge of the stage.

The fifth worker, who was with Panhandle Productions, suffered a broken wrist.

All five were treated and released from hospital.