HARRINGTON, Del.- The Delaware State Fair has upgraded its emergency alert system and installed a new system that can reach the all parts of the grounds in the event of an emergency.
The fair grounds added six clusters of speakers 50 feet up in the air. In case of an emergency or even bad weather, the system can tell everyone on the premises.
The new system has a steep price tag of $300,000, but Danny Aguilar, the fair's assistant general manager and director of marketing, said they want to be proactive after a wind storm killed seven people and injured many more at the Indiana State Fair last summer.
"It made a lot of venues take a step back and address any kind of possible deficiency or enhancements that can be made to the existing systems," Aguilar said.
Officials can make safety announcements through the speaker systems to isolated areas, or the whole lot and from specific parking lots, to the M&T Bank Grandstand.
"Announcements could come from a safety perspective as well as inclement weather, any type of delays that we would need to message the general population," said Aguilar.
During the week of the fair, between 35,000 and 45,000 people walk through the grounds per day. If anything was to happen, the fair wants messages spread to every possible visitor and quickly.
"We want to be able to message directly to them its hard with technology smart phones, can message some, but we recognize there are some customers that may not have that phone capability so we went into full alert system," Aguilar said.
Last year the fair's M&T Bank Grandstand stage was used for the first time, and since then, an additional $250,000 of upgrades were done there for performance and visitor safety.
