Looks like the Omni at CNN won’t be able to house any teams for the Championship Event …from FIRST e-mail…
"The Omni Hotel suffered significant damage due to the tornado. As a result, FIRST has been advised that all team rooms booked at the Omni will not be available for occupancy during the Championship.
Steele Meetings, FIRST’s hotel management company, is currently working to find alternative lodging arrangements for those teams who booked rooms at the Omni Hotel. We are seeking alternative arrangements which provide comparable quality, location, and cost. Due to limited availability, in some instances rates may be higher or lower. "
Look for Team leaders and travel contacts to get new arrangements from Steele Meetings if you booked through them. If you made your own arrangements time to contact the hotels directly!
It was probably sent out to only the teams registered to stay at the Omni.
I heard about it a couple of hours ago from a teammate right before I saw this thread.
The thing that strikes me odd in all of this, is that a lot of the rooms in the main portion of the Omni face in towards the CNN center and I’m shocked this announcement came before an announcement was made about the Westin (if they are going to make one which is yet to be seen) where every room faces outward towards the street & where windows would of been more prone to be blown out… and actually were going by some pictures I’ve seen of missing windows and curtains hanging out of windows.
Kind of odd.
None the less, we are one of the teams that will have to deal with this new turn of events.
Never a dull moment while attending The Championship Event that’s for sure.
I was just watching cnn.com to get some sort of damage assesment… the area where cnn and the omni are does not look good… some of the neighborhoods area have been flattened though… for those of us who are going to nationals and havent booked somewhere yet id say get on it because the omni is not the only hotel that has suffered serious damage…
good luck and i hope the city of Atlanta can overcome this tragedy rapidly
If it can recovery from Sherman and his yankees, not to mention hosting the Olympics I’m pretty sure it can overcome a simple tornado.
My concern is… can it handle FIRST?
NOBODY CAN HANDLE FIRST!!! ITS JUST TOO EPIC!!! lol
…but i must say Atlanta has done a very good job for the past few years… Last year when we walked out on the Georgia Dome floor for the first time our whole team was amazed and to see so many people screaming… it was awesome
You’re not a Midwest boy, are you Elgin? Tornadoes can be very fickle - far less predictable than all the electronics on all the fields and robots in FRC combined. Where one house is destroyed, the one next door only loses a few shingles.
Careful with these kinds of things - they get photoshopped (a verb!) and sent around on the internet all the time. There’s nothing on snopes about it yet, but that’s not to say if it wasn’t doctored (can’t prove a negative).
We received word that the Omni cannot host any teams. 111 has been relocated to the Hyatt.
A friend I know who works at CNN said that they received only 5 minutes warning to vacate while she was on duty. After the tornado came through, the food court was reported to have 8 inches of water. With that kind of damage, problems with infrastructure is likely as well. There may be other problems besides damaged rooms. Something as simple as no laundry could keep a hotel from allowing occupancy.
Looks like the Omni at CNN won’t be able to house any teams for the Championship Event …from FIRST e-mail…
Where one house is destroyed, the one next door only loses a few shingles.