Travis Scott was performing at Day 1 of the Astroworld Music Festival at NRG Park on Friday night when the crowd started to surge toward the stage ultimately resulting in a mass casualty incident. | Amy Harris/Invision/AP

Officials declared a “mass casualty incident” just after 9 p.m. Friday during the festival where an estimated 50,000 people were in attendance. Festival organizers canceled Saturday’s closing day of the two-day event.

HOUSTON — Fans attending a Houston music festival surged toward the stage during a performance by rapper Travis Scott, triggering panic in the crowd of tens of thousands. At least eight people were killed and many more hurt, authorities said.

The chaos unfolded Friday evening at Astroworld, a sold-out, two-day event at the NRG Park stadium. An estimated 50,000 people were in attendance. It was not clear what set the crowd in motion.

“The crowd began to compress towards the front of the stage, and that caused some panic, and it started causing some injuries,” Houston Fire Chief Samuel Pena told a news conference. “People began to fall out, become unconscious, and it created additional panic.”

Seventeen people were taken to hospitals, including 11 who were in cardiac arrest, Pena said, and “scores of individuals” were injured.

Witnesses reported lots of pushing and shoving during the performances leading up to Scott’s set.

Amy Harris/Invision/AP
Travis Scott performs at the Astroworld Music Festival. An estimated 50,000 persons were in attendance according to officials.

When Scott took the stage, the crowd seemed to rush to the front, trying to get closer to the stage, said Nick Johnson, a high school senior from the Houston suburb of Friendswood who was at the concert with friends.

“It just got worse and worse. Everyone was like you just can’t breathe,” said Johnson, who was near the front of the stage in the middle part of the crowd.

Johnson said fans started to crush each other, and people started screaming. He said it felt like 100 degrees in the crowd, which was so thick that he and his friends could not move.

“Everyone was passing out around you, and everyone was trying to help each other. But you just couldn’t move. You couldn’t do anything. You can’t even pick your arms up,” Johnson said.

Scott seemed to be aware that something was going on in the crowd, but he might not have understood the severity of the situation, Johnson said.

In a video posted to social media, Scott could be seen stopping the concert at one point and asking for aid for someone in the audience: “Security, somebody help real quick.”

In a tweet posted Saturday, Scott said he was “absolutely devastated by what took place last night.” He pledged to work “together with the Houston community to heal and support the families in need.”

Houston Police Executive Assistant Chief Larry Satterwhite, who was near the front of the crowd, said the surge “happened all at once.”

“Suddenly we had several people down on the ground, experiencing some type of cardiac arrest or some type of medical episode,” Satterwhite said. “And so we immediately started doing CPR and moving people right then.”

Satterwhite said he quickly met with promoters, who agreed to end the event “in the interest of public safety.”

Amy Harris, a freelance photographer for The Associated Press, described an “aggressive” crowd atmosphere throughout the day because of the way fans were behaving — pushing and rushing the stage barricades and prohibited VIP and admission areas.

“It was definitely the most chaotic festival environment that I’ve been in,” Harris said. “I felt uneasy all day.”

AP
The crowd watches as Travis Scott performs at Astroworld Festival at NRG park on Friday night in Houston. Several people died and numerous others were injured in what officials described as a surge of the crowd at the music festival while Scott was performing.

At one point, she got trapped behind a barricade while photographing performer Don Toliver because about 300 fans rushed the area. They ended up behind the security barricade with her.

“I was scared,” she said.

Harris said she encountered a similar scene for the main act at a different stage. She left the media pit after three songs because of the pandemonium, which included people being pulled over the security barricade to receive medical attention.

Houston Police Chief Troy Finner urged people not to jump to conclusions about what caused the surge.

“I think it’s very important that none of us speculate. Nobody has all the answers tonight,” Finner said.

Amy Harris/Invision/AP
Festivalgoers are seen rushing into the VIP area prior to Travis Scott performing during day one of the Astroworld Music Festival at NRG Park on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021, in Houston.

“We’re going to do an investigation and find out because it’s not fair to the producers, to anybody else involved, until we determine what happened,” he said.

Event organizers had arranged for medical teams to be at the festival. But once the crowd surge began, those teams were “quickly overwhelmed,” the fire chief said.

A field hospital at the scene examined about 300 people throughout the day, he said.

Authorities did not immediately know the causes of death, and the dead were not immediately identified. A medical examiner planned to investigate.

Scott, one of music’s biggest young stars, released two new songs earlier Friday, “Mafia” and “Escape Plan.” The 29-year-old Houston native has been nominated for eight Grammy Awards. He has a 3-year-old daughter with Kylie Jenner, who announced in September that she’s pregnant with their second child.

Drake joined Scott on-stage at the concert — which was livestreamed by Apple Music — and posted photos to Instagram after the performance.

KTRK via AP
Emergency personnel respond to the Astroworld music festival in Houston on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021. Several people died and numerous others were injured in what officials described as a surge of the crowd at the music festival while Travis Scott was performing.

Officials set up a reunification center at a hotel for family members who had not been able to reach relatives at the event. Authorities sought to connect families with fans who were taken to the hospital, “some as young as 10” years old, said Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the county’s top elected official.

Scott founded the Astroworld Festival in 2018, and it has taken place at the former site of Six Flags AstroWorld each year since, except for 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The deaths called to mind a 1979 concert by The Who where 11 people died and about two dozen were injured as thousands of fans tried to get into Cincinnati’s Riverfront Coliseum.

Other music events that resulted in fatalities in recent years include the Las Vegas shooting massacre in 2017, when a gunman perched in a hotel window killed 58 people at the Route 91 Harvest Festival, the so-called Ghost Ship fire in 2016 that killed 36 people in a California warehouse during a dance party and a 2003 nightclub fire that killed 100 people in Rhode Island.

Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle via AP Conley/Houston Chronicle via AP
People walk past a sign announcing Astroworld is canceled outside NRG in Houston on Saturday, Nov. 6, 2021.Read More

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Travis Scott was performing at Day 1 of the Astroworld Music Festival at NRG Park on Friday night when the crowd started to surge toward the stage ultimately resulting in a mass casualty incident. | Amy Harris/Invision/AP

Officials declared a “mass casualty incident” just after 9 p.m. Friday during the festival where an estimated 50,000 people were in attendance. Festival organizers canceled Saturday’s closing day of the two-day event.

HOUSTON — Fans attending a Houston music festival surged toward the stage during a performance by rapper Travis Scott, triggering panic in the crowd of tens of thousands. At least eight people were killed and many more hurt, authorities said.

The chaos unfolded Friday evening at Astroworld, a sold-out, two-day event at the NRG Park stadium. An estimated 50,000 people were in attendance. It was not clear what set the crowd in motion.

“The crowd began to compress towards the front of the stage, and that caused some panic, and it started causing some injuries,” Houston Fire Chief Samuel Pena told a news conference. “People began to fall out, become unconscious, and it created additional panic.”

Seventeen people were taken to hospitals, including 11 who were in cardiac arrest, Pena said, and “scores of individuals” were injured.

Witnesses reported lots of pushing and shoving during the performances leading up to Scott’s set.

Amy Harris/Invision/AP
Travis Scott performs at the Astroworld Music Festival. An estimated 50,000 persons were in attendance according to officials.

When Scott took the stage, the crowd seemed to rush to the front, trying to get closer to the stage, said Nick Johnson, a high school senior from the Houston suburb of Friendswood who was at the concert with friends.

“It just got worse and worse. Everyone was like you just can’t breathe,” said Johnson, who was near the front of the stage in the middle part of the crowd.

Johnson said fans started to crush each other, and people started screaming. He said it felt like 100 degrees in the crowd, which was so thick that he and his friends could not move.

“Everyone was passing out around you, and everyone was trying to help each other. But you just couldn’t move. You couldn’t do anything. You can’t even pick your arms up,” Johnson said.

Scott seemed to be aware that something was going on in the crowd, but he might not have understood the severity of the situation, Johnson said.

In a video posted to social media, Scott could be seen stopping the concert at one point and asking for aid for someone in the audience: “Security, somebody help real quick.”

Houston Police Executive Assistant Chief Larry Satterwhite, who was near the front of the crowd, said the surge “happened all at once.”

“Suddenly we had several people down on the ground, experiencing some type of cardiac arrest or some type of medical episode,” Satterwhite said. “And so we immediately started doing CPR and moving people right then.”

Satterwhite said he quickly met with promoters, who agreed to end the event “in the interest of public safety.”

Amy Harris, a freelance photographer for The Associated Press, described an “aggressive” crowd atmosphere throughout the day because of the way fans were behaving — pushing and rushing the stage barricades and prohibited VIP and admission areas.

“It was definitely the most chaotic festival environment that I’ve been in,” Harris said. “I felt uneasy all day.”

At one point, she got trapped behind a barricade while photographing performer Don Toliver because about 300 fans rushed the area. They ended up behind the security barricade with her.

“I was scared,” she said.

AP
The crowd watches as Travis Scott performs at Astroworld Festival at NRG park on Friday night in Houston. Several people died and numerous others were injured in what officials described as a surge of the crowd at the music festival while Scott was performing.

Harris said she encountered a similar scene for the main act at a different stage. She left the media pit after three songs because of the pandemonium, which included people being pulled over the security barricade to receive medical attention.

Houston Police Chief Troy Finner urged people not to jump to conclusions about what caused the surge.

“I think it’s very important that none of us speculate. Nobody has all the answers tonight,” Finner said.

“We’re going to do an investigation and find out because it’s not fair to the producers, to anybody else involved, until we determine what happened,” he said.

Event organizers had arranged for medical teams to be at the festival. But once the crowd surge began, those teams were “quickly overwhelmed,” the fire chief said.

Amy Harris/Invision/AP
Festivalgoers are seen rushing into the VIP area prior to Travis Scott performing during day one of the Astroworld Music Festival at NRG Park on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021, in Houston.

A field hospital at the scene examined about 300 people throughout the day, he said.

Authorities did not immediately know the causes of death, and the dead were not immediately identified. A medical examiner planned to investigate.

Scott, one of music’s biggest young stars, released two new songs earlier Friday, “Mafia” and “Escape Plan.” The 29-year-old Houston native has been nominated for eight Grammy Awards. He has a 3-year-old daughter with Kylie Jenner, who announced in September that she’s pregnant with their second child.

Drake joined Scott on-stage at the concert — which was livestreamed by Apple Music — and posted photos to Instagram after the performance.

A representative for Scott did not immediately respond to an inquiry from the AP.

Officials set up a reunification center at a hotel for family members who had not been able to reach relatives at the event. Authorities sought to connect families with fans who were taken to the hospital, “some as young as 10” years old, said Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the county’s top elected official.

Scott founded the Astroworld Festival in 2018, and it has taken place at the former site of Six Flags AstroWorld each year since, except for 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The deaths called to mind a 1979 concert by The Who where 11 people died and about two dozen were injured as thousands of fans tried to get into Cincinnati’s Riverfront Coliseum.

Other music events that resulted in fatalities in recent years include the Las Vegas shooting massacre in 2017, when a gunman perched in a hotel window killed 58 people at the Route 91 Harvest Festival, the so-called Ghost Ship fire in 2016 that killed 36 people in a California warehouse during a dance party and a 2003 nightclub fire that killed 100 people in Rhode Island.

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Travis Scott was performing at Day 1 of the Astroworld Music Festival at NRG Park on Friday night when the crowd started to surge toward the stage ultimately resulting in a mass casualty incident. | Amy Harris/Invision/AP

Officials declared a “mass casualty incident” just after 9 p.m. Friday during the festival where an estimated 50,000 people were in attendance. Festival organizers canceled Saturday’s closing day of the two-day event.

HOUSTON — Fans attending a Houston music festival surged toward the stage during a performance by rapper Travis Scott, triggering panic in the crowd of tens of thousands. At least eight people were killed and many more hurt, authorities said.

The chaos unfolded Friday evening at Astroworld, a sold-out, two-day event at the NRG Park stadium. An estimated 50,000 people were in attendance.

“The crowd began to compress towards the front of the stage, and that caused some panic, and it started causing some injuries,” Houston Fire Chief Samuel Pena told a news conference. “People began to fall out, become unconscious, and it created additional panic.”

Seventeen people were taken to hospitals, including 11 who were in cardiac arrest, Pena said, and “scores of individuals” were injured.

Event organizers had arranged for medical teams to be at the festival. But once the crowd surge began, those teams were “quickly overwhelmed,” the fire chief said.

Amy Harris/Invision/AP
Travis Scott performs at the Astroworld Music Festival. An estimated 50,000 persons were in attendance according to officials.

In a video posted to social media, Scott could be seen stopping the concert at one point and asking for aid for someone in the audience: “Security, somebody help real quick.”

Houston Police Executive Assistant Chief Larry Satterwhite, who was near the front of the crowd, said the surge “happened all at once.”

“Suddenly we had several people down on the ground, experiencing some type of cardiac arrest or some type of medical episode,” Satterwhite said. “And so we immediately started doing CPR and moving people right then.”

Satterwhite said he quickly met with promoters, who agreed to end the event “in the interest of public safety.”

Houston Police Chief Troy Finner called for calm and urged people not to jump to conclusions about what caused the surge.

“I think it’s very important that none of us speculate. Nobody has all the answers tonight,” Finner said.

“We’re going to do an investigation and find out because it’s not fair to the producers, to anybody else involved, until we determine what happened,” he said.

It was not clear whether all eight who died were among the 17 people who were taken to hospitals. Many people were also treated at the scene, where a field hospital had been set up. About 300 people were examined at that site throughout the day, the fire chief said.

Authorities did not immediately know the causes of death, and the dead were not immediately identified. A medical examiner planned to investigate.

Scott, one of music’s biggest young stars, released two new songs earlier Friday, “Mafia” and “Escape Plan.” The 29-year-old Houston native has been nominated for eight Grammy Awards. He has a 3-year-old daughter with Kylie Jenner, who announced in September that she’s pregnant with their second child.

Drake joined Scott on-stage at the concert — which was livestreamed by Apple Music — and posted photos to Instagram after the performance.

AP
The crowd watches as Travis Scott performs at Astroworld Festival at NRG park on Friday night in Houston. Several people died and numerous others were injured in what officials described as a surge of the crowd at the music festival while Scott was performing.

A representative for Scott did not immediately respond to an inquiry from The Associated Press.

Officials set up a reunification center at a hotel for family members who had not been able to reach relatives at the event. Authorities sought to connect families with festivalgoers who were taken to the hospital, “some as young as 10” years old, said Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the county’s top elected official.

Scott founded the Astroworld Festival in 2018, and it has taken place at the former site of Six Flags AstroWorld each year since, except for 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The deaths called to mind a 1979 concert by The Who where 11 people died and about two dozen were injured as thousands of fans tried to get into Cincinnati’s Riverfront Coliseum.

Other music events that resulted in fatalities in recent years include the Las Vegas shooting massacre in 2017, when a gunman perched in a hotel window killed 58 people at the Route 91 Harvest Festival, the so-called Ghost Ship fire in 2016 that killed 36 people in a California warehouse during a dance party and a 2003 nightclub fire that killed 100 people in Rhode Island.

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Clark’s Willie Taylor (1) finds the endzone against Raby. | Kevin Tanaka/For the Sun-Times

Clark earned its first IHSA playoff win in program history last week, 28-16 over Elmwood-Brimfield, It was a Public League football success story. It was not, however, an overnight success story.

Clark earning the first IHSA playoff win in program history last week, 28-16 over Elmwood-Brimfield, was a Public League football success story.

It was not, however, an overnight success story.

The road to the second round of the postseason — Clark (10-1) plays at 1 p.m. Saturday at Reed-Custer (10-1) — began years ago for the Eagles and their coach, Kevin Simmons.

Simmons played at Morgan Park, graduating in 1989. He moved on to Northern Illinois as a student and then entered law enforcement with the Federal Reserve. “I planned on staying there and retiring,” he said.

But after seven years, he was caught up in the downsizing of the Federal Reserve police force: “Last one hired, first one fired.”

Simmons got a security job at Orr, which led to a spot on the football staff. When the administration changed at Orr, Simmons went to work at Clark while still coaching football and track at his old school.

Before long, Clark’s principal invited him to coach for the Eagles.

“The first three years it was rough,” Simmons said. “Real rough.”

Clark was 6-20 over those three seasons.

The constant losing was something Simmons wasn’t used to. During his youth football days with the Harvey Colts, he said, “I didn’t lose a game for four years.”

In those early days at Clark, he said, “there were plenty of nights [thinking], ‘Do I know what I’m doing?’

“Knowing the game and coaching [it] are two different things. I had to learn on the fly.”

One of the things Simmons learned is the need to go past Xs and Os.

“As the years went on, I started establishing the culture,” he said.

Now, Simmons wears many hats at Clark, where he’s the head of security, athletic director, football coach and boys track coach. And the Eagles have risen in the Public League pecking order.

Since the start of the 2015 season, Clark is 38-24 and has been in the IHSA playoff field every year but one (not including this spring, when the playoffs were canceled because of the pandemic).

But the Eagles didn’t have an IHSA postseason win until last week, losing big in recent seasons to Spring Valley Hall (54-8) and St,. Francis (45-0).

“The stigma is, ‘City kids can’t play with suburban teams, Catholic teams, they’re not disciplined,'” Simmons said.

That’s why the win over Elmwood-Brimfield was such a game-changer for the Eagles.

“It felt good,” junior running back Willie Taylor said. “We’ve all been working hard, trying to keep going, trying to … make history. The West Side [doesn’t] get as much attention.”

Indeed, the balance of power in CPS has definitely tilted toward South Side powers like Phillips, Morgan Park, Simeon and Kenwood. The one West Side team to get on the statewide radar was Raby, which reached the Class 4A semifinals in 2017.

Simmons hoped Raby’s playoff run would help uplift other West Side programs, but so far that hasn’t really happened.

“We need six, seven schools to come up,” he said.

Clark is doing what it can, following a simple formula. The Eagles don’t play their linemen both ways, which enables them to wear down opponents in the second half. And their offense is a steady diet of run plays with a variety of backs.

That comes in handy when injuries happen. Quadrell Hill, who ran for 740 yards in the first six weeks, is working his way back from an ankle injury and four-year starter Yafae Cotton is out with a dislocated elbow.

That has given Taylor more chances to carry the ball and he’s made the most of them.

“He’s got a motor,” Simmons said of Taylor, who also plays linebacker and on special teams.

“We’ve got the mind-set, we can’t give up,” Taylor said.

They haven’t, and now they’re on a historic run.

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Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images

Vandersloot isn’t sounding the farewell alarm by any means, but after securing a title for the Sky, she’s open to the free-agency process and all that it entails.

After her rookie contract expired, Courtney Vandersloot took all of five minutes to re-sign with the Sky.

Former coach Pokey Chatman laughed when retelling that story, sharing that Vandersloot asked, “What’s the max number of years I can sign for?”

The 2022 season will be Vandersloot’s 12th in the WNBA, and for the first time in her career, she truly will be a free agent. It’s somewhat of a head-scratcher considering she technically has been a free agent multiple times already but never for real. She always has signed with the Sky, driven by the goal of bringing a championship to the organization that drafted her.

Vandersloot isn’t sounding the farewell alarm by any means, but after securing a title for the Sky, she’s open to the free-agency process and all that it entails.

“I haven’t thought a lot about it,” Vandersloot said. “I told [Skycoach/general manager James] Wade I was going to be a free agent this offseason. Whatever that means. I told him we will stay in constant conversation. I just want to be open and transparent. I really have no idea what’s going to happen next season.”

Vandersloot said Wade will have the first call, but it’s hard for her to commit without knowing what the team will look like.

Vandersloot spent the Sky’s championship parade and rally wearing a boot. She has been recovering from an injury to her plantar fascia, which for the most part, has meant a lot of rest. This week, Vandersloot began treatment and is expected to be back on the court for UMMC Ekaterinburg sometime in mid-December.

Taking time off isn’t easy for the 11-year veteran. Sticking to a very detailed, full schedule has become a habit. Since the Sky’s championship, Vandersloot has taken a break from the game before reporting to Russia for her fourth season. Typically Vandersloot doesn’t take weeks off following the WNBA season, so the mental break has been a welcome one.

“For me, the first week to 10 days after a season are hard,” Vandersloot said. “I’m so used to the everyday grind. I’m a creature of habit. After that, I’m OK and start to think, ‘I can get used to this.’ “

Don’t worry, Vandersloot isn’t talking about retiring, just the possibility of relaxing more.

If the 2021 season was any indication, she’s in the prime of her career. Vandersloot and Kahleah Copper were the only two Sky players to start all 32 regular-season games. Vandersloot led the league in assists for the fifth consecutive season, averaging 8.6. She’s fourth on the league’s career assists leaderboard with 2,178 behind Sue Bird (3,048), Ticha Penicheiro (2,600) and Lindsay Whalen(2,345).

Her career average (6.66) is first in WNBA history, with Penicheiro in second (5.73) and Bird third (5.55). Her triple-double in Game 1 of the semifinals against the Connecticut Sun was the second in playoff history. Vandersloot was Chatman’s first draft pick (selected third overall in2011) in her six-year coach/GM career for the Sky. Wade has been vocal in crediting Chatman for seeing in Vandersloot what many others missed.

The trust developed between Vandersloot and Wade has played a significant role in the Sky’s success over the last three seasons. Vandersloot said their relationship is more profound than player/coach; they’re like family. Regardless of whether Vandersloot resigns with the Sky or plays for Wade the rest of her career, she said she’ll stay connected with him for life.

“As long as I’m coaching, I’m going to do everything for [Allie Quigley and Vandersloot] to be back in Sky jerseys,” Wade said. ”As long as they’re playing basketball, I want to be their coach.”

Wade signed a four-year extension with the Sky ahead of the 2021season that runs through the 2025 season.

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