What Happened at Movies in the Park

Our final Movies in the Park will go down as the most memorable of all time.

Things were going great. We got setup quickly. The crowd was starting to come in. Someone noticed on their smart phone weather app that a small shower that was headed our way, but by the look of the radar it appeared to just be a drizzle.

The drizzle started. I made an announcement that the event was still on and that we were just waiting out the shower.

Then the bottom dropped out. What began as a small drizzle became the storm of the century. The light green radar turned dark red and grew. Not only did it rain torrentially, but there was massive lightning. Lightening was popping every 10 seconds. I don't like lightening.

We had 15 people stuck in our church's trailer with all of our equipment. There were people taking shelter under the stage and at Barnet Park's picnic shelter. We had a few folks stuck in the metal coke trailer, not the best place to be when there is lots of lightening.

But the storm didn't let up. It got worse. Unlike most summer storms that move through after a few minutes, this storm stopped over the city and stayed there for almost two hours. Come to find out, there was flash flooding all over Spartanburg with roads shut down around the city.

The wind picked up drastically and ripped our movie screen to shreds and bent the metal poles. It was bad. When we went back to Barnet Park to clean up one of our guys said it reminded him of Ringold, Georgia, the town devastated by the tornado a few months back.

I kept thinking of the tragedy in Indiana with the collapsing stage that killed 5 people a few weeks ago. That could have been us. I'm thankful that God kept us safe.

The only casualties were the screen, its frame, and our projector. Not sure how the projector got damaged but it did. Pray that it's an easy and quick fix.

One of our guys, Bryan Scott, took a video on his phone that you can see here.

I am so amazed by Hub City's people. The all stayed and really risked their lives to save our equipment and help people make it to their cars.

I'm also thankful for Scott from the city and Sargent Raines from the police department. They went out of their way to help people stay safe.