A crowd safety expert offered a scathing review of the local government’s reaction to the Astroworld event.

Paul Wertheimer dedicated his life to studying how crowds behave at all manner of live entertainment events. His work began in1979 after 11 people were crushed to death outside a Who concert in Cincinnati. Wertheimer worked for the city and was assigned to a task force that studied how to prevent future tragedies.

A year after ten people died during the 2021 Astroworld Festival no clear answers have emerged as to who exactly is accountable for the tragedy or what specifically is being done to prevent a similar tragedy in Houston in the future.

“So going into this everybody knew it was going to be a problem, the department ramped up like it was a Super Bowl or a Hurricane,” said Mark Lentini, a now-retired Houston police officer who says the festival ended his career.“Long before the disaster struck any crowd expert or person involved in crowds responsible for crowds knew there were storm clouds over that festival,” said Paul Wertheimer, a crowd safety expert with decades of experience studying crowd surge and other safety issues.On Wednesday, Nov. 2, KPRC 2 Investigates examines the safety and prevention measures that could prevent mass casualty disasters, including crowd design, emergency medicine planning, and the need for a unified command.