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Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management Crisis and Emergency Management Newsletter Website |
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October/November
2007
Volume 13 - Number
1/2 |
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Soccer Tournaments and Tornados Don’t Mix By Amy Bergbreiter We were in penalty kicks to see who would continue
on in the soccer tournament when someone shouted tornado and instructed us
to head towards a nearby bus barn. The bus barn was nothing more than
a metal shack, and even I, at age 12, knew that was not the best option in
severe weather. Cleary heading towards a temporary building, half a
mile away, in tornado and lighting storm would not protect us. Instead
we ended up huddling in an entrance alcove at the nearby elementary school.
There we were, sitting outside a perfectly adequate shelter hoping that the tornado would choose a different path. Some girls even insisted that everyone needed to throw their glasses away from us to prevent the attraction of lighting. We were all in a unfamiliar area, and were scared. After about 15 minutes of waiting, it was decided that the best option would be to enter the school in any manner possible, so someone grabbed a trash can, broke a window, and we all retreated to safety. No one was injured that day (except for perhaps the person who had to pay to fix the school window) but it was quite evident the tournament operators were not prepared. No one was ready to move the large number of people who were exposed on the practice fields to an area of safety. Even though a safe structure, the school, was nearby, no one had access to it. We must be prepared at any large gathering. In this case, the preparedness options would have been to have emergency access to the nearby school. Also, clearly the soccer tournament should have been suspended when the severe weather warning covered the area, not after a tornado was sighted. Having the elementary school nearby was a lucky coincidence for this particular event, as typically soccer complexes are in wide open areas without adequate shelter for extreme events. In these cases, when adequate shelter is not nearby, operators will have to be even more aware of weather threats in the area. Also, typically tournaments for any sport are dealing with children and people who have traveled from out of town who are not prepared to evacuate an area. This poses a particular problem for any organizer and this fact needs to be addressed in the planning stages of the tournament. The event hopefully awakened the tournament operators to the need for preparations and shelter in a moments notice. Even though the storm seemed to have been a sudden event, the weather should have been monitored more closely to better move the large number of people to safety. This personal experience with an emergency situation clearly indicated the need for awareness for your surroundings, and the fact that any disaster, even small scale events, is a possibility. No trophy is worth risking a child’s life, |