Derecho! Posted September 16, 2013 Share Posted September 16, 2013 I feel this belongs here rather than sports as there's a clear weather angle. So now the Seahawks/Niners is the third game in two weeks with a lightning delay. Some thoughts: 1) For Denver/Baltimore they made no effort to tell the fans to take shelter and it appeared none did. They don't appear to be doing so in Seattle. I didn't see the Saints/Bucs game - what happened there? 2) I'd say the odds that lightning strikes anyone on the field itself is about nonexistent. Has such a thing ever happened in an ACTUAL FULL SIZE STADIUM? I'm not talking about kids getting hit playing little league or at a high school football game, I'm talking a very high stadium - I'd think physics would limit any strikes to the upper deck, which I believe happened at a music concert in RFK stadium in the 1990s. 3) Basically they're saying player, ref, and coach safety is important, but fan safety is not. 4) They're going to end up having some insanely long delays for training cells with a little bit of lightning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sunny and Warm Posted September 16, 2013 Share Posted September 16, 2013 the chance of something bad is small, but the lawsuit award would be enormous. Would you delay 10 games out of ~280 games in a season to prevent losing $50M and good will in a lawsuit. Pretty easy decision. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derecho! Posted September 16, 2013 Author Share Posted September 16, 2013 the chance of something bad is small, but the lawsuit award would be enormous. Would you delay 10 games out of ~280 games in a season to prevent losing $50M and good will in a lawsuit. Pretty easy decision. Multiple fans have fallen to their deaths in US sports stadiums in the last couple of years and they're still selling them enough beer to get stinking drunk. "Safety above all" is intellectually bankrupt. There's cost-benefit to everything. I can assure you a 1/2 hour delay in a huge game like this is killing ratings, particularly on the East coast where people who have to work early just give up and go to bed. The safest thing to do would be to just shut down the league. I just find it increasingly frustrating that we're utterly paralyzed by irrational risk/reward calculations and fear of lawsuits. Other thing is that, to be clear, for Denver and Seattle these are not exactly May in Oklahoma supercells or a derecho. And my main issue is that they have made no effort to force fans from their seats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derecho! Posted September 16, 2013 Author Share Posted September 16, 2013 I was at the concert. the fans who were struck were on the lowest level. in fact, when it happened, we thought it was a gunshot or some kind of bomb or firecracker initially as there was no thunder yet from the approaching storm. Was that a Tibetan Freedom concert? Lower level? Wow. I don't remember that. Anyway, I'm looking at the Seattle stadium now and there are fans sitting rather high up in areas uncovered by their roof. If there were making a sincere effort to at least TELL the fans to leave their seats (which I haven't heard any evidence of) I would have less of a problem with it (though there are safety issues with rapidly getting fans from the seats to the concourses as well). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derecho! Posted September 16, 2013 Author Share Posted September 16, 2013 Other things that occur to me is I suspect that they were still furiously selling beer to fans during the 1-hour lightning delay. I presume there's some sort of cut-off policy for the 4th quarter but that will be much later now. I'm going to check the Seattle paper tomorrow for alcohol related accidents tonight. I'll bet there is a fatal one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minnesota Meso Posted September 16, 2013 Share Posted September 16, 2013 Most of what will follow to the best of my ability is true. Target Field, home of MLB's Minnesota Twins is the only major professional sports arena that employes a on site meteorologist for each and every home game. Most often times it is Craig Edwards, who retired from the NWS WFO MPX in 2006 as it's MIC (meteorologist in charge). It is the only major professional sports arena in the county to have earned the Storm Ready tag. To be honest, I don't know what all the protocol's are for the different types of weather that may approach the field, however it's my best guess that if lighting is in the area, the fans would be advised to take the proper actions. Why all professional sports venues are not certified storm ready is gross negligence IMO I also think that each pro sports venue should employ a full time met. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cajun Thunder Posted September 16, 2013 Share Posted September 16, 2013 I feel this belongs here rather than sports as there's a clear weather angle. So now the Seahawks/Niners is the third game in two weeks with a lightning delay. Some thoughts: 1) For Denver/Baltimore they made no effort to tell the fans to take shelter and it appeared none did. They don't appear to be doing so in Seattle. I didn't see the Saints/Bucs game - what happened there? 2) I'd say the odds that lightning strikes anyone on the field itself is about nonexistent. Has such a thing ever happened in an ACTUAL FULL SIZE STADIUM? I'm not talking about kids getting hit playing little league or at a high school football game, I'm talking a very high stadium - I'd think physics would limit any strikes to the upper deck, which I believe happened at a music concert in RFK stadium in the 1990s. 3) Basically they're saying player, ref, and coach safety is important, but fan safety is not. 4) They're going to end up having some insanely long delays for training cells with a little bit of lightning. For the Saints-Bucs game, it was posted on the scoreboard to take cover. In fact, there's a picture of the scoreboard with the message on it in one of the Saints stories on nola.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stebo Posted September 16, 2013 Share Posted September 16, 2013 I'd rather have this policy in place where people take shelter, I know MSU had 2 delays already this year due to lightning in East Lansing. I do believe there were messages to take cover at all these games, the problem is many fans didn't listen at the pro games, and it took Tom Izzo to get the fans at the MSU game to take cover, I believe there is a video of that on Youtube. I think erring on the side of caution and having people take cover is much better than having someone stuck by lightning, even if the chances are remote. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyhb Posted September 16, 2013 Share Posted September 16, 2013 It is the only major professional sports arena in the county to have earned the Storm Ready tag. To be honest, I don't know what all the protocol's are for the different types of weather that may approach the field, however it's my best guess that if lighting is in the area, the fans would be advised to take the proper actions. Why all professional sports venues are not certified storm ready is gross negligence IMO Which is why a big fear of many a met is a large tornado striking a major sporting venue (like in Dallas, Atlanta, Chicago, etc.). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wi_fl_wx Posted September 16, 2013 Share Posted September 16, 2013 There have been a number of close calls with people in the stands. MLB game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWiO0LGXsiQ CFL game: I know there have been deaths in the past from strikes into a seating bowl. I do not think it was in the US though and I can't find a story. Generally, all fans are required to leave the seating bowl during a lightning delay--or at least they are in the lightning prone areas that go through these delays often. There were CGs coming down all around the stadium last hight in Seattle. It is very dangerous and it is good that these policies are in place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellinwood Posted September 17, 2013 Share Posted September 17, 2013 Certainly not the NFL, but here's an example from the 13th: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/highschool/football/os-hs-photo-lightning-strikes-near-football-field-during-halftime-on-friday-20130915,0,7683918.post Too close for comfort... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Akeem the African Dream Posted September 17, 2013 Share Posted September 17, 2013 Certainly not the NFL, but here's an example from the 13th: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/highschool/football/os-hs-photo-lightning-strikes-near-football-field-during-halftime-on-friday-20130915,0,7683918.post lightning_football.jpg Too close for comfort... I was just going to post this. This was a football game between Boone and university High School in Orlando on Friday evening. I was actually at this game This is the video where the still photo was grabbed from. The strike occurs at 5:08 in the video. There was a 2nd strike that occurred about a minute after this one in the end zone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycTg7OmFpbU There is a pretty big debate on our Facebook community page about how there was no lightning detection in place. The school in this case had their lightning detection turned off on Friday evening. There were two distant lightning strikes prior to this one and anyone that is familiar with Florida weather should have realized that there was going to be some intense lightning that was going to develop as a result of looking at radar. The seabreezes collided right over this local area. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quixotic1 Posted September 18, 2013 Share Posted September 18, 2013 Texas Rangers evacuate their fans. They don't mess around. http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/rangers-tornadoes?urn=mlb,wp7599 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsteel Posted October 1, 2013 Share Posted October 1, 2013 There have been a number of close calls with people in the stands. MLB game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWiO0LGXsiQ CFL game: I know there have been deaths in the past from strikes into a seating bowl. I do not think it was in the US though and I can't find a story. Generally, all fans are required to leave the seating bowl during a lightning delay--or at least they are in the lightning prone areas that go through these delays often. There were CGs coming down all around the stadium last hight in Seattle. It is very dangerous and it is good that these policies are in place. Lightning strikes killed one person after a NASCAR race last year at Pocono, but that was in the parking lot after the race. The race wasn't called in time, & many fans were leaving the track when the storm hit. http://www.nascar.com/en_us/news-media/articles/2012/08/07/pocono-fans-struck-by-lightning.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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