ABC News’ Yunji de Nies and Jon Garcia Report:

President Barack Obama was supposed to mark Memorial Day with a speech at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery, but stormy weather forced him to cancel the event. The President took the stage amid heavy rain and thunder with a large umbrella in hand and advised the crowd to take cover.

“Everybody listen up. We are a little bit concerned about lightning. This may not be safe. So I know that all of you are here to commemorate the fallen and that’s why we’re here. What we’d like to do is, if possible, have people move back to their cars, and if this passes in the next 15-20 minutes, I will stick around and we’ll come up and start up the ceremony again,” Mr. Obama said. “But we don’t want to endanger anyone, particularly children in the audience.”

The President headed to a nearby administrative building, then briefly greeted service family members who were waiting out the rain on nearby buses. The White House went back and forth, but eventually decided to cancel the speech and leave the cemetery, as sharp bursts of lightning continued to fill the sky.