Cleveland Launched 1.5 Million Balloons into the Air and Chaos Ensued

The excitement was palpable; many people had been looking forward to this spectacle. They had no idea what chaos they were unleashing, but they were about to find out.

The City of Cleveland was anxious to be part of the Guinness anniversary edition book, and many of its citizens submitted outlandish ideas for what the city could do to win entry into the famous book. Little did they know what kind of fame they would achieve.

The United Way relies on donations to do its work. Each year during the United Way campaign, the organization creates unique campaigns to encourage citizens to donate. In 1986, the United Way of Cleveland hit upon a crazy idea to raise money. Crazy it was, but also flawed.  

If you look at the map and imagine a balloon launch, you can easily see what the problem might be. A great and clever idea to raise money for a good cause was about to go horribly wrong.   

It was time to call in an expert. Balloonart by Tred was a Los Angeles company owned by Tred Heining. He was famous for his balloon art which had been seen at Super Bowls, Academy Awards, and even presidential inaugurations. 

And who filled all of those balloons? It was the residents of Cleveland, and the process took many hours. When the volunteers, over two million of them, had filled 1.5 million balloons, they figured it was time to stop. 

The kids’ efforts brought in a great deal of funding for the United Way, and the goodwill was incredible. The plan seemed perfect – kids raising money for a good cause and a fun-filled day watching the balloons go up. But that’s not how it happened.

The organizers considered postponing the event but dismissed the idea. The balloons were ready, the people were excited, and they were determined to move forward with the plan. Maybe they should have waited.  

Then the temperature plummeted. Cold air is very bad news for balloons, which would easily pop in such weather. It just seemed that the organizers were being sent messages to call off the event. They should have listened to those messages.  

The planners assumed that the balloons would just come back down when they ran out of helium. But this was not the case because of something else that happened at Balloonfest that no one saw coming.  

Think about the thousands of people gathered in the center of Cleveland who’d waited months for this day. They were excited and had no idea of this scientific fact – they were expecting the balloons to go up into the rainy skies in a beautiful rainbow of color.

After all, he’d been hired to organize this event to get into the Guinness World Records and was not about to call it off after months of preparation. We don’t know exactly what he was thinking, but perhaps he hoped the skies would clear in time.

But the final decision was to go forward with the launch. It was hard for the organizers to believe that after all of their hard work, anything could truly go wrong. One can only wonder how they felt after the dramatic disaster.

As you read on and find out what happened, you will be amazed at both the effort it took to prepare for this event and at the poor judgment on the part of the planners in failing to cancel the launch. 

The balloons flew into the sky en masse and looked like a gorgeous shower of confetti. The crowd was ecstatic, cheering and clapping on the ground, celebrating the city’s achievement. They had no idea what a terrible mistake they’d made.   

What could possibly go wrong on such a perfect day? It was a massive celebration, Treb was being congratulated, and the kids who’d done the fundraising were so proud of themselves. The city of Cleveland was proud. Well, they were proud for a while.

What happened next will horrify you. How such a wonderful day could unleash such destruction and chaos is hard to believe. The super famous balloon event creator had made a disastrous mistake that would cost this great city untold misery.  

The scale of the damage was unimaginable. If the balloons had just fallen down from where they were launched, it would have been horrible. But the damage went far beyond the city center, and everyone realized that Cleveland would have to pay for this in many ways. 

The helicopter pilots managed to avoid what would have been certain peril by maneuvering their aircraft out of what had become a mushroom cloud above the city. But that mushroom cloud was just the start of a frightening and dangerous path. 

On a sunny, warm day, the balloons actually expand as they rise, and the air pressure around them changes. The expansion causes the balloon to explode, and the pieces of plastic just fall to the ground. But that’s not what happened on this day

The unexploded balloons, weighed down by the colder air, began to fall, and not just on the center of the city. They fell like big colorful raindrops onto streets, rivers, lakes, and farms. Most fell over Canada and Lake Erie, bobbing along on the waters of the lake. 

There was surprise that the environmental agencies had allowed this launch, which caused millions of choking hazards to land near wildlife. Drivers were in extreme danger of having accidents with the balloons plummeting down on the roads. And at the nearby airport, it was even worse.  

Flights were delayed, and some were canceled or diverted to other airports. This had a huge ripple effect on all of the airline schedules, with passengers furious that balloons had messed up their travel plans. And if you can believe it, it was about to get worse. 

Many of the horses became injured and were not able to compete until they recovered. Their owners were furious and demanded compensation, suing United Way for the damages. And the trail of balloon-related damage does not end there.

The men’s boat had been found close to shore. It had obviously capsized, and it looked damaged. Inside, searchers found a rushing rod and a fisherman’s cap. All feared that somehow the balloons had caused the boat to capsize, and the search began for the men. But there was one huge problem.   

The fisherman would have been wearing orange life jackets, but they would be floating amid colorful balloons, many of which were orange-colored. It was nearly impossible to identify a human floating amid that riot of color. Two days later, sadly, the men’s bodies washed up on shore.  

The United Way affirmed that they had taken into account the environmental impact and that the balloons would degrade at the same rate as an oak leaf. How long is that, though?  

And let’s consider the helium that was released into the air as the balloons popped. It seems quite a waste because helium is considered a limited resource. The next question was, would United Way pay for the damage?  

Now the funds would have to be used to compensate many people who suffered damage from the unmitigated disaster of Balloonfest 1986. Since then, the United Way no longer organizes these types of events. That’s all well and good, but its reputation was never the same after that event.

The damage to wildlife, water, and land caused by the balloons brought a strong backlash from environmental agencies. Not to mention the public, who, for the most part, began to distrust the agency altogether. For many years the United Way was still dealing with the fallout from the disaster. 

In United Way’s annual reports from the years surrounding Balloonfest, the text says that the organization distributed over $40 million in 1984, then uses general language about failing to meet its goals after that. And guess what? The Guinness 1988 book includes it as a world record “largest-ever mass balloon release” with 1,429,643 balloons launched.