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Security expert discusses AstroWorld tragedy after plans show no steps to take for crowd surges
FOX 26 Reporter Tom Zizka spoke with a security expert as a 56-page event operations plan for AstroWorld showed there was no plan for what to do regarding crowd surges.
HOUSTON - The 'event operations plan' for the Astroworld music festival provides the blueprint for how the event was to be managed, including how to handle emergencies. It's 56-pages long, with just a few lines about crowd disturbances and riots, including the suggestion that 'proper management of the crowd from the minute the doors open is the key.
Some security experts say they'd dig a little deeper, than that.
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'"This is like a pressure cooker," says Houston security expert Hanan Yadin. "At some point, it's going to burst and you have to have control."
Yadin got his start in the Israel Defense Force and Shin Bet anti-terror organization. While crowd control is not his specialty, he says there are some basic things he would consider.
"We need to think in reverse. We need to start from what could really go wrong, and start work from there," he says. "Make sure there are security rings in place (and examine) how people are being screened before they go to an event like this."
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A Dallas woman identified on Tik-Tok as @Capriesha96, shared by the UK's The Independent, describes how she and her husband showed up at Astroworld, among hundreds Friday morning, to work security. She says she quickly felt overwhelmed.
"Everybody was confused and nobody knew what they were doing, including the people that was over us," she said in the recording.
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Hanan Yadin says it's critical that security personnel know the plan, and be able to execute it. Further, he would have discouraged the crowd of 50,000 from being jam-packed together. He would have corralled them into smaller, more manageable groups, that might have minimized any crush of people.
"Did they ever think about something like this happening," Yadin wonders. "If they thought about it, what were the protocols in place to minimize or prevent from a disaster or catastrophe?"
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Contemporary Services Corporation is the company listed as providing security for Astroworld. TMZ reports there were 'some' hired for the event who received a degree of training in the days leading up to the festival. Hanan Yadin says, ultimately, it's up to people who attend events to be aware of their surroundings and listen to their gut if something doesn't feel right.