Reporter’s Notebook: The Lollapalooza Evacuation

Reporting from Chicago — My first thought was, "there's no way they're going to pull this off."

Looking out over the massive crowd gathered in Grant Park on Chicago's lakefront for day two of Lollapalooza on Aug. 4, it seemed inconceivable that promoter C3 was going to be able to evacuate them all before a fast-approaching storm hit.

About an hour earlier (2:30 p.m. CT), a senior member of the C3 staff had come through the press area behind the Red Bull-sponsored Sou...