Re: Severe Weather Precautions in STL
 

I personally don't have any problems with how the situation was handled. Announcing to everyone that "a tornado is coming, please stay put" would have caused ridiculous amounts of panic. Where would you have wanted to evacuate to? We were already in a safe place in the case of a tornado, and there were volunteers keeping people from leaving the seating area to the hall outside where there was lots of glass. They were kept up to date on all the weather conditions, and even kept the finals going longer (which was surprising to me, they always seem to go on so long anyway :p ) so that people wouldn't want to leave out into the storm.

Re: Severe Weather Precautions in STL
 

We discovered today that the hail in St Louis had destroyed the skylight/vent on the top of the team's trailer. The rain during the past couple of days was not good for the trailer's contents. Our pit carpet is now hanging over one end of the driver station wall of our practice field to dry out. Our mascot costume and its carrying bag are sitting out to dry as well. I think the electrical crew took the wires off some of the robot batteries to make sure there wasn't any lasting damage.

The top of the trailer is covered in dents, clearly visible from the inside.

Re: Severe Weather Precautions in STL
 

See this post (he conveys what I am attempting to say much better):
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...8&postcount=60

I'm doubtful that dome was really the safest place, and that keeping everyone in the dark about the situation was the best approach. HAD there been an emergency situation, it would have been absolute chaos because there was no plan conveyed to the audience. The tornado sighting I heard of (from an adult who saw it) occurred 10 minutes or more before any announcement was made of severe weather (other than the one electronic billboard that the majority of the audience could not see).

Everyone in the stands knew something was going on outdoors, but nothing was said; imagine if a handful of people had decided to take off running (for no real reason), more than likely there would have been a stampede because people were on edge and prepared for the worst.

The way this was dealt with is strikingly similar to the disasters you hear being investigated afterwards in the media, where poor-choices/inaction in an emergency situation cost many people their lives.

Maybe FIRST did have a better handle on the situation than I was able to perceive, but for an organization that preaches safety so strongly, I was very disappointed by the way it appeared to be handled.

Re: Severe Weather Precautions in STL
 

Did everyone make it home safely? Someone told me that there was damage to vehicles in the volunteer parking lot.

Jane

Re: Severe Weather Precautions in STL
 

When I first heard the Championships were going to St. Louis I was concerned about falling victim to violent crime not getting whacked by Mother Nature!

Re: Severe Weather Precautions in STL
 

P.S. An aside - I was sitting in my brother's kitchen with all hail breaking loose, using my niece's laptop to create this thread. My family urged me to include a warning about the tornado but I refused, saying that I didn't want to add to or cause any type of mass worry or hysteria. At that time, I wasn't sure where the tornado was or what type of situation you were in but felt pretty sure that things were very serious.

Jane

Re: Severe Weather Precautions in STL
 

It was quite a year for me in FIRST for lock downs.

#1 Smoky Mountain regional. We were locked down because of a tornado warning, real tornadoes in the area. We never stopped playing because that part of the convention center was mostly underground and actually a storm shelter and the safest place to be. If fact people from other parts of the convention center were evacuated to our area.

#2 Pittsburgh Shootings, already described here. It was easy to find out what what happening via smart phones even though there was never an announcement. I do believe there was a mentors meeting about the situation. The field crew decided to keep running practice matches to give the teams something to do.

#3 St Louis, I was actually sitting in the stands next to a meteorologist. We were watching our smart phones and he assured me there was no danger of tornadoes in the radar we were seeing but he was so excited by the big pink blob and the hail potential that he had to run out and look.

Re: Severe Weather Precautions in STL
 

Yeah, there was a mentor meeting after the incident was over to explain what went down and how to exit the arena for the evening because at the time the street leading towards the incident was unavailable (it was open by the time our team left, though). It actually wasn't on any of the news sites even for like a half hour after we were instructed to stay inside, I found out by searching "pittsburgh" on Twitter.

Haha, I bet "I'm a meteorologist" is a good enough excuse for the security to let you through.