Atlanta tornado discussion

[feliks_rosenber]

I read somewhere about one severely injured. I hope that turns out to be wrong.

[Wetzel]

Bill Miller mentioned this during opening ceremonies today at Pittsburgh. So far, there are limited reports of injuries. Other details are still unknown, but are being investigated at this time.

Wetzel

[feliks_rosenber]

with one reported in critical condition.

Not the best of news...

[Coredesat]

Hearing there was a ridiculous amount of damage to various parts of downtown Atlanta. The Georgia Dome got off fairly lightly compared to the Georgia World Congress Center, CNN Center, and surrounding areas. The National Weather Service confirmed an EF2 tornado with max winds of 130 mph. CNN is, of course, covering this fairly extensively.

This probably won't affect the FIRST Championship event, but there might still be cleanup going on in the area by then (yes, perhaps a month from now).

[Pat McCarthy]

The CNN.com article I read said that most windows on one side of the Omni hotel were shattered. I don't know how long it takes to replace that much, but it could affect team's hotel reservations.

[Jeff Pahl]

Well, I can confirm that it's pretty ugly in Atlanta. I was there last night, and the three hours of local news that I watched in my hotel room did not look good. A lot of the contents and pieces of the Omni hotel were in the street. Pieces of the roof and sides at Phillips arena were missing. At least one hole in the roof at the dome. A broken water line inside the GWCC somewhere was running down one of the interior staircases like a waterfall. As I went through downtown on the interstate very early this morning to get to the airport to come back home, a large swath of buildings still did not have power. Billboards and interstate exit signs were just missing. And apparently it is worse to the east of the dome area, where at least 20 houses were flattened, and a condo building collapsed. The fire department did not excpect to have the condo building structurally stabilized enough to even search until tomorrow.

Please keep all those who were injured and killed (at least one that I know of), and all those involved in the clean up, in your thoughts and prayers.

Yes, if you have reservations at the Omni you probably want to call them, but wait until Monday... They have enough problems right now, the SEC basketball tourney is this weekend (there was a game in progress when the tornado hit the dome). Not only did they lose all the glass on one side of the building, but it looked like the ceiling tiles and insulation, along with some of the chairs, lamps, etc, were sucked out. Hopefully they will have it fixed in a month, but there is a lot of work to do.

Oh, yea, the Westin Peachtree Plaza (the tall round hotel with the outside glass elevator) has a bunch of windows out, too, so if you are staying there you might also want to check with them.

And, also, the Peachtree Regional is this weekend on the northeast side of ATL, and then NWS just issued a tornado warning for a couple miles north of the regional site.

[Justin Montois]

This is a crazy Video, I've walked where he is walking many times, though when I walk through it there's not 7 inches of water....
Good thing Championship isn't like next week.

I feel terrible for the people affected by this storm. I hope everything turns out as good as it can for this type of disaster.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=MZnlpb...eature=related

[Jeff Pahl]

Weather Channel is showing possible baseball size hail in the same area in downtown Atlanta again. A tornado warning was just issued for the area of the Peachtree Regional.

And apparently the weather has crashed the scoring computer at the regional, resulting in about a 3 hour delay and they are scoring the elim matches manually.

[bduddy]

There was an announcement about this at SVR, and I suspect at other regionals as well because they said it came from FIRST HQ. Basically, they said there had been a tornado and that FIRST was monitoring the situation, blah blah blah. The damage wasn't even severe enough to stop the NCAA game (only delay it), so I can't imagine it'll affect the Championships, but...

[dangerousdave]

Originally Posted by Jeff Pahl

Weather Channel is showing possible baseball size hail in the same area in downtown Atlanta again. A tornado warning was just issued for the area of the Peachtree Regional.

And apparently the weather has crashed the scoring computer at the regional, resulting in about a 3 hour delay and they are scoring the elim matches manually.

Having just returned home to suburban Atlanta from the Peachtree Regional, I think there were other reasons that the scoring system crashed but that is only a guess. This resulted in about a 3 hour delay as Jeff said. The elimination matches were scored manually. Once everything got started the volunteer staff did a fantastic job!

One of the many volunteers, Ryan Stewart, did a great job announcing the time left for every elimination match at 15 second intervals, including counting down from 15 to 0 seconds in each match. He will need to rest his voice over the next few days along with the team announcer, Troy.

It was also kind of funny when the final few matches were being scored. The final score and penalties were being manually typed in. Team members were trying to sneak a peak at the score on the small LCD screen prior to it being posted on the big screen. The staff held up a large black piece of fabric in front of the scoring table to keep prying eyes away.

Each match was started with a checkered flag being waved.

There apparently was very bad weather including hail passing by the competition but most of us didn't notice it. It was nice outside after the awards were announced.
Dave

[Coredesat]

Originally Posted by bduddy

There was an announcement about this at SVR, and I suspect at other regionals as well because they said it came from FIRST HQ. Basically, they said there had been a tornado and that FIRST was monitoring the situation, blah blah blah. The damage wasn't even severe enough to stop the NCAA game (only delay it), so I can't imagine it'll affect the Championships, but...

Actually, the damage was fairly bad, and that game should have been stopped. The only reason it was continued was because the SEC is under a time constraint to get its tournament finished before the NCAA announces its selections for the tournament - the remaining games were moved to a different location as the NCAA deemed the Georgia Dome unsafe. Just outside the Georgia Dome there was quite a bit of damage, and there have been numerous reports of baseball-size hail in the area today.

[swaknight]

I hope that they have a plan b because this may not end pretty. The georgia dome was hit hard, the fact that there was a tornado in a downtown area should say something.

[Chrisms]

does anyone have an accurate report? We heard so many stories in the pits today... you know, the game of telephone. Any locals who can personally attest to how bad the damage is?

these are the best photos i've found: http://projects.ajc.com/gallery/view...windstorm0314/

[Coredesat]

From what I have seen from the Storm Prediction Center and the National Weather Service, an EF-2 tornado with maximum winds of 130 mph struck downtown Atlanta on Friday night. Saturday saw more severe weather with reports of baseball-sized hail in various areas. Damage estimates are $150-200 million; including damage to the Georgia Dome, Georgia World Congress Center, CNN Center, Philips Arena, and various hotels; downtown Atlanta has been declared a state disaster area. Several injuries but thankfully no fatalities in the Atlanta area.

Several people were hurt and one person was killed in tornadoes that spawned from the same storm system, in eastern Georgia and South Carolina.

The basketball games scheduled to be played at the Georgia Dome were moved to Georgia Tech as the Georgia Dome was deemed to be unsafe for the players and fans.

Lengthy report from CNN here: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/15/sto...nta/index.html

[Guy Davidson]

We were updated today between some matches (or during one of the ceramonies, I don't remember) that FIRST is in touch with Georgia Dome officials, and they will monitor the situation and keep us updated.