Rain Delay Evacuation Announcement

[illinoiscyclone]

Haven't seen it covered in other threads but did anyone else have an issue with the evacuation announcement?

It was incredibly nebulous.. "select areas of the stadium require evacuation". Nobody ever said which areas. They announced a weather watch for the area but when they announced the evacuation they didn't specify a reason which made me wonder if something else was going on. If they would have announced the evacuation was due to lightning we could have surmised what those select areas of the stadium were. The event staff didn't seem too concerned but they also were not helping the evacuation in any way. Lastly, the notice didn't make it clear as to whether we had to leave our seats in the stadium in general. God forbid if anything were to happen at JTS which was more serious.... But I think they have some work to do on their emergency preparedness.

Am I being over sensitive here? I have been involved in other emergency situations (on a much smaller scale) so I tend to be constantly preparing for the worst

 

[WooBadger18]

Haven't seen it covered in other threads but did anyone else have an issue with the evacuation announcement?

It was incredibly nebulous.. "select areas of the stadium require evacuation". Nobody ever said which areas. They announced a weather watch for the area but when they announced the evacuation they didn't specify a reason which made me wonder if something else was going on. If they would have announced the evacuation was due to lightning we could have surmised what those select areas of the stadium were. The event staff didn't seem too concerned but they also were not helping the evacuation in any way. Lastly, the notice didn't make it clear as to whether we had to leave our seats in the stadium in general. God forbid if anything were to happen at JTS which was more serious.... But I think they have some work to do on their emergency preparedness.

Am I being over sensitive here? I have been involved in other emergency situations (on a much smaller scale) so I tend to be constantly preparing for the worst

In general I didn't think it was too bad, but I do think they should have put which sections were included in the "partial evacuation." Because like you, my dad and I didn't know/didn't hear which sections were supposed to be evacuated

 

[clonedude]

C'mon, really?

What else are people going to come up with to complain about?

The skies were as dark as could be to the southwest of the stadium, and you could hear rumblings of thunder. What did you think the delay was for?

I did think it was a little strange the line about "certain sections", I assume they meant the southwest part of the stadium, but if you were concerned about getting struck by lightning, I assume you'd leave the stadium no matter where you were. And there are others who sat at the top of the stadium for nearly the entire thing. People are going to do whatever they want anyway.

Close this meaningless thread.

 

[Sparkplug]

I just assumed they wanted the upper deck to evacuate and anybody standing next to a flagpole

 

[CyArob]

I assume if it was a real evacuation, they would have let the people stuck in the middle sections exit by going down onto the field and then out. I was in Section 10 and no one was moving going up the stairs. But I agree it seemed very unorganized

 

[Raiders70]

In my mind I was 95% sure it was weather related. On the other hand they did not say it was weather related. They just said the stadium needed to be evacuated. At the time of the evacuation announcement it wasn't raining and the sun actually came out right after the announcement.. My fear is one day some Moslem radicals might try to blow up a stadium in the US like they have tried to do in Europe. Lets be honest security isn't super tight at ITS compared to some venues.

 

[cyclonedave25]

When the announcement was made, this was pretty much me for the next 2 hours:

 

[Clonehomer]

Maybe they were trying to nicely say "Anyone in the stands need to find shelter. Those in the SEZ and luxury boxes, you're fine. Just keep drinking"

 

[nfrine]

With all the lightening that was visible when I finally got to the concourse, I was amazed they let folks continue to sit in the upper level.

 

[awd4cy]

Idk, how you could be there and not know at first it was weather related. Was in the sw corner where you couldn’t see to the south well but it was still obvious. Stayed in seat for a bit but when it started raining decided I might as well move to concourse.

 

[ImJustKCClone]

People were milling in the concourse once they got out of the stands, so there was nowhere for the people on the stairs to go. We watched the line going up the stairs next to us, one step every 2-3 minutes. That was enough for me. We decided to stay put (sec 3) until a) they cancelled the game, b) they kicked us out directly, or c) it started hailing. I would not have been able to stand for as long as people were standing up there anyway.

 

[CTTB78]

They must not have wanted the student section to evacuate as they were shooting T-shirts into the crowd during the delay.

 

[wxman1]

I try not to nitpick but I agree it was slow and disorganized. I was curious about how they would handle it operationally and IMO they got lucky that the storm didn’t get closer. From the time the teams started heading for the locker rooms until they put something on the video board was about two minutes. It was another 1:30 until an announcement was made. At that point it was obvious what was happening. It also was not a surprise that this was a possibility. The storm developed and moved that direction before the fame even started.

My second complaint is with the organization/communication. Was Hilton open? You can’t protect everyone but there did not seem to be any attempt to provide at least some good protection. I asked several state troopers that were around and several stadium security personnel. No one knew a thing. I thought in the past there were speakers on the concourses but I must have made that up. That would be a nice addition to have in general but especially in these cases.

Don’t get me started on the horrific Verizon service within a mile of the stadium.

I personally don’t know if simply saying evacuate and having a message on the video board is enough to limit your liability.

 

[Sparkplug]

When the skydivers came in my thought was that there must not be an lightning in the area otherwise they wouldn’t be there. Twenty minutes later game delayed for lightning with eight miles

 

[wxman1]

When the skydivers came in my thought was that there must not be an lightning in the area otherwise they wouldn’t be there. Twenty minutes later game delayed for lightning with eight miles

I was surprised they went up.

 

[Doc]

I was surprised they went up.

I wish they had a cameraman with them to get some sweet shots of that sky southwest of them. America!

 

[coyoteclone]

What was totally uncalled for was the need to scan tickets under the circumstances. Obviously more than 60,000 tickets were scanned entering prior to kick off. What were they concerned with.....a few hundred people sneaking back in without a ticket?

 

[wxman1]

I wish they had a cameraman with them to get some sweet shots of that sky southwest of them. America!

The original plan as I understood it was one of them had a GoPro to live stream it. I noticed one of the two that landed in the stadium did have one so maybe we will see that someday.

Edit:They did post a couple of pictures one of which is from during the jump.

 

[jeff0514]

Would have been nice if they had been able to put a weather radar up on the big screens, so folks could see what the situation was. Cell phone reception was spotty, so it wasn't the easiest to pull up the latest radar on my phone. I still don't understand why they started the game in the first place, when one could see storms were on the way. Only reason I can see is that they can say part of the game was played as a reason not to issue refunds.

 

[Die4Cy]

The evac plan seemed designed to satisfy the minimum requirements of ISU's legal and insurance departments, rather than effectively evacuate anything. Needs a bunch more work.

Like the first game of the year, this is the kind of thing you can never know how effective it really is until you try and implement it. It's so important to be able to properly assess weather risks well enough ahead of time to allow 60,000 people the opportunity to move to safety, so no small task.

Luckily Saturday, most people were easily able to figure the situation out and weigh the risks (minor) for themselves. If it were a real dangerous situation it would have had the potential for catastrophe.