Early morning severe storms hit Minnesota State Fair [RAW]

chip and I are here under the grand standand this morning it is around 5:30 and I just wanted to come on here and show you guys a quick look at what we're dealing with at the fairground right now so let me flip this for you so again we're here at the grand stand I don't know if this is even doing it justice necessarily but we can see lightning we can see a ton of rain coming down on us right now and very strong winds we have seen several garbage can knocked over this morning and actually this sign here so this corn cob compost sign was all knocked over this morning when we got here from the first round of storms that hit uh yesterday evening um and we saw a lot of these workers put these up this morning but there's a chance those could come down with just how strong these WIS are maybe this will do it even more Justice for you you can see the lightning kind of hitting this morning you can see some puddles start to form Maybe maybe this goes to show how strong the wind is maybe it doesn't how about this for some perspective you can see these garbage pans all knocked down within just the last 5 to 10 minutes I actually see a pretty big puddle forming in the same area uh where those workers at the cornrow stand were jumping into that big puddle yesterday there was a video social uh on social media last night of some workers jumping in a huge puddle that was right in this area uh this is a pretty lowl area and you can see some big puddles starting to form already this this morning if you haven't seen that video we do have it up on on fox9.com right now as well as our fox9 social media Pages again this is what we're dealing with our car is right there this is where we were doing live shots early this morning we have now moved oh my goodness it looks like there's some workers we're kind of on the move right now we just did our last uh live shot at around 5:30 and as Kelly mentioned you know a lot of these vendors have to get here early to set up for the big day this is going to delay the process by a lot I think you know not only do they have cleanup to worry about but they have to make sure these streets are clear before a lot of these uh Fair goers start showing up once the gates open listen I also explained this in my last hit we went to the grand stand to kind of take cover chip and I um but with the wind that's blowing in our Direction right now in all sorts of directions really it feels like we're not necessarily dry um I don't know if you guys can see this but my jacket is pretty soaked at this point and uh that's even with a roof over us so again here we are at the grand stand wow you can see my camera is really starting to get wet as well hopefully you guys can see this as well as I can but um this is kind of the status right now stfe Fairground a little after 5:30 in the morning lots and lots of water on the streets this is not going to be easy to clean up here before the gates open in less than 2 hours from now it's literally a swimming pool you could jump in it um so yeah first on perspective if you don't know where we are if you're just joining us this morning on this Facebook live we're we're under the grand stand the cornrow stand is right there the boxine booth is right there with the giant slide you can see that um but this isn't looking great guys for Tuesday at the Minnesota State Fair and I'm going to stay on live here just so I can because I have nothing else to do right now we can't get to our car we can't necessarily do anything right now but if you've been on this live uh for the last five minutes or so you may be able to just see the DraStic difference in even just the last 5 minutes things are starting to flow down this puddle almost stream right um garbage can's knocked down a garbage can lid is flowing in this puddle as we speak some workers over there taking cover in that semi TR one worker out in the open right now this is pretty dangerous to be in they should also be taking shelter um some cars kind of stalled in that area right now as well we actually had a Sheriff come up to us and tell us to take cover uh immediately as well as our meteorologists um because of the severe wther threat if you were planning to go to the fair today I'm interested in hearing about your experience I'm also interested in seeing how these vendors are going to kind of set things up um for the day and what that process will look like we've seen Crews up and at them early this morning kind of cleaning up what was you know left over from yesterday's storm system um and it just sucks for these guys right because now they have to come back and kind of do this again how they do that I guess is the question um but this is not looking great guys if I were to jump in right now this would be a Flatout swimming pool I mean look at this the garbage cans are literally filling up with water this is nuts another garbage can just went down I mean everything is falling down my cans my fingers are wet I can't even like properly zoom in for you maybe that kind of adds to the perspective of how wow how high this water is on the street again we are at the grand stand right next to the cornrow stand um selfishly I'm thinking about our walk to the car that's not going to be easy to walk in um so yeah you can stay with us here on fox9 for all of your updates also make sure you are staying Sky aware by downloading our Fox sign weather app um and if you are up watching right now if this storm system is hitting you or you check our radar on the fox9 weather app and you see that it's going to hit you I would definitely take cover stay inside uh cuz yeah this is not it's not something you want to be outside in your fingers are wet and this is just with us being under the grand stand to quote unquote take cover right but as I explained earlier this morning the wind is making it so that this rain is hitting us regardless uh the wind did died down a little bit but now we're just getting a lot of rain it seems like this rain hasn't necessarily stopped um but guys this is a much different picture from what we saw when we first got here at around 4:45 this morning the puddles that we saw yesterday here at the grand stand or not at the Grand sand the fairgrounds excuse me were you know it was gone everything looked pretty good I was really impressed actually I thought maybe we were going to be walking into the fairgrounds and we were going to see some big puddles but that wasn't necessarily the case when we got here well fast forward 30 minutes here's how much things have changed so I'll give you one last look this morning at the fairground wow look at this car I don't think it's necessarily smart for this car to be driving in this but maybe this adds to the perspective again I'm trying to give you some perspectives cuz I know it's dark out and I know it might not be as easy to see as it is for us but hopefully this is doing it justice for you wow wow chip are you seeing this just plowing through all of this I'm going to assume these people are vendors workers it looks like an ocean it wow it literally looks like an ocean this is not good for these drivers to be going through right now this is not good at all this is not recommended this can create for some really dangerous situations in a whole different aspect if you have a smaller car you're not making it through this please look at the waves this is nuts wow here's a smaller car going through that not great guys not great at all wow there's someone taking cover under the grand standand as well probably a smart idea not smart to go through this I was uh kind of closing my eyes there for a sec when I saw all these drivers going through these puddles um it's going to be a feet Soaker for sure it's going to be a Soaker in general I think we're already soaked so again if you're just joining us I know that I've been on this live forever but I really just wanted to make sure I was able to show everyone what we're dealing with this morning what you might be waking up to this morning I got a few texts this morning saying that they woke up because of the storm um kind of similar to what we saw last night but man I just can't believe the amount of rain that we're seeing I don't know if you guys can see my hands but it's soaked um I'm just really thinking about the vendors today we talked about this this morning on fox9 as well on Sunday we saw the lowest attendance recorded in four decades and we'll kind of have to wait and see what numbers looked like yesterday but really I'm not anticipating that these numbers are going to be pretty high because it started out gross hot muggy sticky and then it kind of turned into this perfect recipe for these severe storms last night so fairgoers if you had plans to go to the fair today uh I hope this is not the case when you get here I hope you guys are able to keep your plans to come out here um and yeah stay safe stay indoors stay Sky aware download our Fox sign weather app lightning still striking as we speak not looking great there's a Sheriff going through that right now again again not recommended we saw a lot of drivers doing that today whether they were workers vendors or people working at their booths not quite sure it is not recommended it literally looks like an ocean you guys I I don't even know how else to put this into words did a few deputies come up to us this morning and saying that you know we need to take take cover I think it goes without saying um again make sure you tune in to Fox 9 and uh keep that app handy because our weather team is on it and they are providing you with the updates