Harris County Fire Marshal Laurie L. Christensen on Wednesday rejected findings issued by...
FILE - Travis Scott performs at the Astroworld Music Festival in Houston on Nov. 5, 2021. A surging crowd resulted in the death of ten people. Harris County Fire Marshal Laurie L. Christensen on Wednesday rejected findings issued by a state task force that highlighted some county policies related to the Astroworld tragedy., Gov. Greg Abbott created the task force to study the incident and provide recommendations on how to make such events safer.
Echoing other county officials who spoke to the Chronicle, Christensen said she had reviewed the task force’s findings, but that the task force cited statutes that “simply do not apply” to the Astroworld event. The laws, she said, apply “only to performances outside the boundaries of a municipality.”
The situation is complicated by the fact that although the Astroworld Festival took place on Harris County property, that property lies within Houston city limits. The city approved all permits for the event, but Houston Fire Chief Sam Peña maintained that the city did not have ultimate authority over the event.
On Wednesday, Peña said that the memorandum of understanding dictates that city fire marshal inspectors are required to perform maintenance inspections on county buildings at NRG Park, but said the document “has nothing to do with, and does not lay responsibility for, events held in their parking lot.”
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