We all know how the outcome from the game, but I wanted to write a thread (and most likely an email to the AD's office) about the pisspoor excuse for event management that occurred yesterday.
We walked from the airport to the stadium starting at 1050am and by the time we got to Lane by 1130 we'd already heard some thunder to the South. We had gotten a text message at 0909 asking to pay attention "to social media (@HokieSports), the video board and PA system for information regarding weather and actions to be taken". I don't have twitter and refuse to join that website so I figured that I'd have to rely on the other two forms off communication they referenced, even though the university has a website, a mobile app, an emergency broadcast system, etc.
We got through the metal detectors (why the hell are there metal detectors now? What prompted that bit of security theater?) before being told @ 1140 that the gates and detectors were shut because of inclement weather. You can't see the video board from the SW entrance and the PA system might has well have been turned down to 0 because there are no outwards facing speakers to provide notifications. Someone in line asked the FD/Cops at the gate what was going on and was told that the gates would open at 1150. The gates opened at 1150 even though the weather hadn't changed and people entered with no one there to scan tickets. The flyover happened with few if any people in the stands (I can understand this because of fuel loads in the Hornets) and there was a 20min delay to the game. Even with said delay, advertisers had to get their time in so we instantly went to 3 minute ads.
Finally the rain starts and stops, starts and stops, and the ENTIRE TIME you could hear thunder to the South and see the clouds moving from South to North. Now, even though I have a plethora of weather apps on my phone, NONE of them could be used because the cell phone service in Lane Stadium at game time is ATROCIOUS. Finally there's some activity on the field as whoever in charge finally pulls their head out of their ass and makes a decision...to evacuate the stadium...in the middle of a thunderstorm...with 40k people. So everyone starts making their way out of the stands as it starts to pour and it takes a solid 20-30min for everyone to get into cover, although now everyone is in the concourse or have made their way into the other shelters.
And there we proceeded to sit for 1.5 hours waiting for information. The monitors in the concourse didn't provide any information, there was no PA system, cell phone service (at least for my wife and I) was inop because of all the people and aforementioned atrociousness, so there was generally no idea WTF was going on. Finally at about 230 word travels through the crowd that the AD is going to re-assess the situation at 3pm. Well, with no end in sight, another storm system looking like it was going to roll in about 5pm we decide to leave and go back to the airport to fly home. We exit the South side and see a bus pull up, but there's no marking of where it's going. We decide to go up to Cassell to see if we can catch the CRC and get there to see a bunch of people waiting for the buses as well, but no one there providing any info. We decide to walk back to the airport but as we start we see an "Out of Service" bus. We knock on the door and ask the driver if the buses are running. "Nope". Great. We get back to the airport, hop in the plane, fly back to Charlottesville, and about the time we land get a text message @ 4:44 about the game being postponed to 6:15.
So let's recap:
- Start a game even though there's severe inclement weather inbound.
- Fail to provide timely updates after calling a delay.
- Don't have a means of providing updates because the cell service is so atrocious
- Don't restart the buses to get people to where they need to go
- Failed to provide an update at the 3pm deadline
Honestly, how is VT this bad when it comes to situation management? You would have thought that they'd be king shit at getting information out quickly to large numbers of people and providing updates as events unfolded. Why do they continue to accept cell phone service that is sub-par in this day and age?
Moving forward, if there's inclement weather on the horizon, screw VT, I won't go to the game.
Comments
I am pretty annoyed at the experience too. Cell service was inoperable outside of the stadium and I had to walk back towards campus and down the road before I could get data in and out. I was only able to send and receive a couple of tweets, and those led me to conclude the bar was the best move.
Ultimately, we came back to Lane for the game. There was only one vendor selling beer and food and I spent 40 minutes waiting in line for a beer. That sucked too.
haven't been in a while, but I know cell service has usually not been great. This new antenna did get installed over the off-season to improve the coverage in/around the stadium, but its possible/likely that these got impacted by the storms either directly or further upstream with the carriers. I also have no idea if Verizon has jumped on to this either, and if they haven't then that could explain the poor coverage for those customers.
For what it's worth, my family's T Mobile service did surprisingly okay while others stuck around me with Verizon didn't seem to have much luck.
I was able to text ok but no web service; probably didn't help that many people were streaming video for other ongoing games while hanging out in the concourses.
Yeah - 50k+ phones within a single network tower probably works as well as cramming 50k+ into the concourse at Lane. And hearing Verizon didn't work well corroborates what was pointed out in the article I linked above.
Last few games I have been to have been very unpleasant for a variety of factors, and I feel like it has gotten increasingly worse the last 5+ years. Just seems very bush league as far as overall event management. I've gotten to the point where I would prefer to just watch from the couch, and even then have found more enjoyable ways to spend my Saturdays than watching a very subpar product. Sounds like a pretty big cluster yesterday from your account and many others I've seen. I found the lack of updates on the situation strange and that was the longest weather delay I have ever heard of.
Brings back memories of the 2000 season opener against GT...so things haven't changed much. I remember saying eff it and just sitting in the stands until they let everyone off through the field.
It definitely turned from oh I guess we'll get wet to oh this a legit dangerous situation and I have my 12 and 7 year old daughters with me. We were under the awning of the press box so at first when it was raining we were staying dry after walking in without scanning tickets and the weird sandman/not sandman beginning.
When they called the game we were so far up the bleachers the line was not moving so we just sat there on the aluminum bleachers with the Mighty Thor letting us know we did not need to be outside. Once it started moving we got in line on the steps and folks were even letting us by since we had the kids with us. It was take a step wait a couple minutes, repeat. That was when i happened to look back to the sky and the southwest corner of stadium (we're in section 20 so right above us) and this massive bolt hits right there and the immediate booooom of the thunder. Everyone let out a scream with some drunken wooos some legit I'm scared screams.
If that thing didn't hit the stadium it hit right there next to it. We're completely exposed in the open, surrounded by aluminum. I look down at my 7 year old daughter who's at her first VT game huddling down in her rain jacket because the rain is hitting us so hard it's stinging and think to myself 'damn man what did I get us into.'
We finally get down to the concourse and it's chaos. Theres people just everywhere packed under the shelter. The cops were trying to force people out to clear the stadium and it was like a hurricane outside. We were at the south end of the west watching the absolute torrents coming down and thunder and lightning just exploding everywhere. They never approached us to clear out but I wasn't about to take my daughters out into that to walk all the way to lot 9.
So we stood there packed like sardines. Cold wet and miserable. People around us starting talking about tornadoes and it stressed me out even more. The girls took it pretty well all things considered. Everyone was friendly. They eventually started bringing food around and handing it out for free. People in front of us got hot dogs and pop corn and turned around and offered it to our kids. They were very kind. I eventually got a plain hot dog and godamn it was so warm and tasty unwrapping it from the foil.
It let up enough by about 3 that we decided to walk back to the car and we did, soaking wet and cold but no one got too down about everything that was happening. We came on home and watched the game on tv. At least the team didn't get steamrolled.
Honestly I had service every time I looked while everything was happening. I guess we got lucky. I actually texted and found our friends in the concourse during the craziness.
We're already talking about going to the Wake game next month and trying again but that was the worst experience I have had going to any football game and I've been to a lot. It was also my birthday lol. Sorry for the novel. It was a crazy day.
VT seems to have an administrative problem. This isn't exactly rocket science but we keep making stupid logistical mistakes and refusing to deal with problems. It feels cheap, tbh.
Who needs logistics when you have twitter??
/s
"Weights weigh the same."
Completely tangential to this... I am shocked how many problems VT currently has with the decisions of this administration. If you took Theory of O with Torg, it's the definition of a silo'd ineffective organization. When I went in 94-99, I graduated with such a love of my VT. We were so excited to send my kid there this year as an incoming freshman and it has been a cluster. Dining halls full or not even open (hour long lines and having to use grub hub to order), gym completely full all hours of the day, buses full, meal plans that don't explain that they take the first cut of 50% for fees so your kid really only has half of what you think on their meal plan, dorms that have mold, weren't even cleaned for move in, air filters that hadn't been changed in longer than I care to think about, no in person orientation so we had to register for classes before even virtually meeting with an advisor, onboarding list after list of things for my son to do before move in but it came from admissions, from their college, from their department, and many conflicting pieces of information and tasks to complete, having to navigate many different websites under Tech's domain with no centralized place to start (Hokie spa, star rez, Hokie wallet, athletics, dining services, admissions portal, scholarship portal, canvas orientation, health services just to name a few) and many of those required separate logins (not one central login), we tried to find the undergraduate software download but we kept getting pushed is circles. Nothing is centralized. Every department at Tech has their own silo. Oh, and many many fees tacked on to tuition and room and board It has been such a disappointment and not at all the experience both my husband and I had. Luckily I'm in state. No way would I pay that atrocious amount for out of state. My son loves his classes and professors but everything else has been a nightmare. VT is on the wrong course. The feeling I get is Sands wants to grow the university to be like a Big 10 school but has zero ability to understand the infrastructure needed. Off campus housing is outrageous too. It ain't your momma's VT. And I am as Hokie as they come.
Growth is hard. I have never seen it done well because getting everyone to go along with the growth is impossible. You need better infrastructure, well some one has been there for 20 years and don't want to change what they do. There are investments that need to be made but timing when to make them is extremely tough.
Also the way universities are set up make it even harder. Colleges don't want to give up any control or power even if it would make everything easier. Universities are all silo'd naturally.
I wasn't there but I'm curious to know more specifics. My kids are at an age where I can finally start taking them without much hassle, but if the gameday experience isn't ideal then I'm going to continue to save myself the frustration and the loss of a weekend.
I wasn't at the Purdue cluster, but I went to the ODU game with 3 5-year-olds and a 9-year-old, and we didn't have any problems at all. We only stayed until halftime, so we had an easy time getting out, but getting in and to our seats before Enter Sandman was easy and other fans were accommodating of the little ones.
Curious - have y'all been to other on campus sold college football games that had a rain delay and seen it done better?
I went to the Clemson/ND rain game 6 or 7 years ago, and the '09 Miami @ VT game, but neither had weather anything like this.
I was at the thunderbowl... that's it.
Nothing is worse than the thunder bowl. Idiots just got into the tunnels and stopped. Wouldn't move onto the concourses. And we were all stuck out on the stands behind them. Rain flows at least six inches deep between the stadium and our vehicle. The damage was so bad in our lot, it was closed the rest of the year.
I was yesterday at NC State. Got delayed two hours for thunder. Crowd was amazing before the storm, and maybe 80% stayed after but it definitely did not have the same atmosphere post delay as it did before.
To play devil's advocate - I thought the fact we even got the game played yesterday was impressive. There is no good way to evacuate 50 thousand people at a moments notice.
The weather was absolutely bizarre and unpredictable. If Lane Stadium had been 10 miles north or south there would have not been any rain. Kevin Myatt had a really interesting image on twitter showing just how concentrated the rain was yesterday.
My daughters were at gymnastics in Christiansburg and they didnt get a drop of rain the entire time.
I do agree with improving cell service and wifi. It has been marginally better this year. And LED lights... some day.
Why's it gotta be at a moments notice, though? Plenty of people who weren't even at the game were on the game thread sharing various forecasts that said shit was going to hit the fan.
I'm pretty sure the admin has access to the same, if not better, forecasts. ...or, maybe, they're trying to use weather apps on their phones inside the stadium and can't get service like the rest of us. /s
Personally - I saw the clouds coming and took my two boys (4 and 6) to the concourse when Jennings got hurt.
FWIW - I have a friend with NWS who said VT officials were in constant communication with them since Friday trying to get it right.
Based on the ESPN article that gave the heads up on how poorly managed the VT athletic department has been, none of this surprises me.
The weather forecasts for when and where the rain would hit was wrong all day throughout NC and VA. I think to VT admin and officials it probably looked like there were multiple windows where the rain would stop and there would be a window to play. But the weather and radar was changing unpredictably from 11am to about 3pm.
My kids were at Wake-Vandy game with in-laws. 11am start, suspended within first few minutes of game. They were in stadium concourse without much of any update for 1.5 hrs. Decide to leave, get in car, and then announced on radio at about 12:50 that the game would resume at 1:10. And the weather in Winston was a lot more predictable than in Blacksburg, but even they weren't able to communicate a good update to fans until right before restart.
I would have been terribly annoyed had I been in Blacksburg Saturday. But not really sure VT is to blame for the experience. No one there can control the weather. And at 11:30am the radar and forecast looked like there would be some rain but everything clearing out by 12:30, and then come 12:30 everything changed.
I just want to point out I'm not blaming the school. It was crazy timing and the forecasts were all over the place. I saw the dark clouds off to the south and heard a rumble as we were walking to the stadium. I could have turned our group around but I wanted to watch football. I don't think anyone expected that bad of a storm coming on so suddenly and just not letting up for hours.
I will say this, though... This thread is giving me flashbacks from the incident I posted about in 2018.
Sad that we still have so much to work on.
Section 18 in particular was really bad about getting out. Just stood there with lighting and thunder raining down around us with no movement out of the Stadium for at least 20 minutes. The students got out much quicker. Seems like a lot of the older Alums got out of the rain and didn't bother to get out of the way any further to let more people in. Can't really blame them, but still sucks and was a potentially dangerous situation. I know we couldn't move that fast as my Dad was dealing with knee issues. Should've called for the evacuation much sooner. I was hearing thunder for a while before they called it. Just more disappointing management by VT administration...
With all due respect to the people calling the shots at the game (to be clear, there is no respect due to them), it's really incredibly unacceptable that they put people in a situation where this happened:
We are lucky someone (likely a student) wasn't killed when that happened
Was at the game start had to leave to make flight out but going to talk about some new facts I learned this weekend and some basic public safety/ emergency management stuff here:
The walk through detectors are here and almost any venue you will visit to stay and I wouldn't be surprised to see them pop up at more tourist spots and malls. The walk through types have gotten really good at limited false positives.
As to the delays and storms. The NCAA rule is lighting within 8 miles. These storms came into that limit fast and unexpectedly. The stadium and surrounding area saw over 4 inches of rain whereas Cheistiansburg saw less than half an inch. When the first delay hit they have to shut down access to the stadium which means staff have to leave the gates too for their safety. When the larger system came through and the stadium closed the PA and other staff actually left the boxes also. As for the crowded nature of the concourse it's because people didn't got to three available overflow options.
When you have an outdoor venue and people spread across 10 plus square miles in parking your options when a storm like this hits are limited. They opened three overflow venues for people that could have held the majority of people who couldn't quickly access their dorm/car/other shelter.
"Training" storms and slow moving too; this is the 'perfect storm' (pardon the pun) for flash flooding!!
Jennings broke his leg
jeeze, why can't we have nice things. I wonder if he could have another year?
Is this true? I have not seen this information anywhere else
As someone who watches the weather every single day for work (roofing). That was an incredibly unique storm system to come through like that. Its just the unpredictable nature of thunderstorms unfortunately. I had multiple friends in Cburg and New castle who barely got a sprinkle much less 4inches.
The problem seemed to be that everyone got to the concourse and stopped due to weather/not knowing what to do. Also it seemed that were no event staff/police directing anybody and the exits. Not sure if they were supposed to or not.
I missed the first announcement as we were en route when they started turning people away and we ended up in Cassell for the flyover
For the second announcement, they asked fans to evacuate the entire stadium and move to other shelters or their cars. Very few people actually did that and just packed into the concourse. It's hard for me to blame VT admin when the masses aren't complying with their directions. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
See Alums post upthread re lightning strike! https://www.thekeyplay.com/comment/1212227#comment-1212227
I wasn't about to try to walk about in that lightning and windblown rain going straight sideways! I DIDeventually bail around 230pm( because I had plans in Richmond and there was no end in sight for the delays- and the promised 3pm update didn't happen til after 4 from what I heard on the radio broadcast).
on my walk back to lot 18 -which took me 40 minutes-the lightning was at least 5 miles away at that point and the rain was just steady not Biblical! Still windy and I was soaked like I'd entered a wet T-shirt contest by the time I got to my car! Also almost got stuck in the mud in lot 18 exiting(rwd Charger NT ideal in that situation lol). Plus on drive home Waze routed me off 460 to back roads to Ironto-came upon a point where there was about 8 inches of running water across the road abut 15 feet wide; one car turned around- I made it through ok.
I get this. Short of building multiple, wide tunnels from Lane to other structures around, I'm not really sure what more VT could do in this situation. You have 60K fans all scrunched into a relatively tiny area and a freak storm comes through with lots of thunder and lightning and heavy rain. Where are you going to send those folks at a moments' notice?
The only time I have been wetter, I was swimming. That was a heavier downpour than my shower.
Two times I can think of for me
I used to bag groceries at Ukrops while in high school and was working on an evening when the remnants of a tropical storm came through. Literally had rooster tails of water coming off the wheels of the takeout cart as we rode it back down thee hill to the store through the parking loot! (Side note- IIDK why but every single Ukrops parking lot had hills in them). I would ask customers if they wanted to give me their keys and go get their cars for them and pull to the front door of the store for them. Once you're wet and you just don't care anymore, it's actually pretty fun (if no lightning around that is).
2) Gaston in Richmond 2004-almost eleven inches of rain in just over one hour! Soaked to the bone just walking to my car!
BC, 2007 - wettest I've ever gotten at any event
I was far wetter Saturday than that game or the JMU game.
It took till Monday for my truck seat to dry out.
I keep a towel in my car for the purpose of keeping my drivers seat at least a little dry in situations like that.
I keep a wool blanket, but I gave it to my passenger. Mom is going to be 83 next month, I wanted her to warm up as soon as possible.
Oh I have those too- blankets , pillows, often a sleeping bag- never know when i might need to sleep in my car after a night game with heaving drinking involved (or simply a heavy night drinking at the bar after I play pool lol) . Spent many a night sleeping in my car.
Which Ukrops did you work at? I bet we've crossed paths.
The one on Patterson/Gaskins-but was a LONG time ago (senior year high school-1982/3-then summer/breaks from then til graduating VT in 1988. Gayton Crossing store had JUST opened up 1/2 mile away which took the enormous pressure off our store which previously was by far the busiest Ukrops at the time. Even with all registers open there were lines 8 deep or more at every single one. We would run out of grocery carts and on Saturday mornings when we opened at 8am, there would be 50 people waiting in line to get in.
That said it was a great first job and very much a family atmosphere. I met several of the Ukrop family in the stores (James, Bobby, Scott ) and the company picnic at the Ukrop farm in east end.
Gotcha. From the way you were talking about Ukrops and TS Gaston (both staples in my high school days) it sounded like we might've been close in proximity. But I wasn't even born when you were baggin' at the Krops.
Gaston was so weird though, I have a lot of cool pics and stories from that day being at my internship downtown, sneaking out to go golf before the storm got bad, having to call golf off after 4ish holes because it was indeed way too bad, and then my office being flooded with 20+ feet of water.
In terms of location(three dimensions) yes but not in the fourth dimension! I DO work downtown- well i did before Covid rules made me remote and fortunately for me I've been able to STAY remote).And other than my years at tech, I've lived in the Richmond metro for 50 years(since we moved up here in 1973 when I was 8 and my dad retired from USAF at Langley)- most of that in west end of Henrico. Man the changes i've seen in the area in those 50 years!
I want to preface this by saying that I wasn't at the game but a few thoughts:
-this was a very odd and unexpected storm for SWVA. After seeing the shots on TV, I called my dad in Roanoke to see if things were ok...he was sort of amused by the call and told me he had light showers on/off but that was about it. This was a fast-moving and extremely localized storm
-along that line, something like this happening here in FL would not be as unexpected and the preparation (better drainage, ect) is already in-place. In converse, if you dropped 3 inches of snow on the ground here it would be absolute mayhem as compared to how it would be managed in SWVA.
-Regarding getting people out of the Stadium, I think you would be hard-pressed to find any full Stadium that could be evacuated fully efficiently--they are just not designed for that. More modern facilities with larger concourses would likely fare better, but Lane is a product of its time. Furthermore, in situations like this efficiency is highly dependent upon individuals themselves to act calmly and somewhat altruistically--that's a pipedream in most scenarios. People tend to be erratic and fend for themselves which is what leads to the gross halting of progress (yes these are the same people that crowd in front of the gate at the airport even though they are in Group E).
-Lastly, it seems logical to say that they could have just pushed the game back based on the forecast--the logistics involved in that would be a nightmare, not to mention I'm sure Big Brother (ESPN) was exerting pressure to try for an on-time start.
I do think there is a legitimate gripe regarding communication and lack of ability to get wifi or cellular connection in Lane--this has been problematic for years and really should have been addressed by now....the technology is available
Regarding the BT not going anywhere, at one point they announced basically a shelter-in-place order for all buses. The flash flooding all around town was insane. It wasn't safe for anyone to be driving anywhere, so that one's not on VT, honestly, and BT was acting in the safety interests of their drivers and passengers.
Unless something has changed from when I was a driver for BT, weather-related decisions about the BT are made in partnership with VT, BT, and some entity from the town (I can't remember if it is governance or safety, like the Blacksburg PD). So even if it had been a poor decision, multiple entities would have been to blame.
A lot of VT constituents think BT exists only for VT, but it provides service to many residents of the NRV as well. So that is a part of why BT decisions aren't solely VT administration.
We ended up walking back after the second evacuation actually following the orders to actually leave Lane Stadium. It started hailing five minutes into the walk, but it was better to finish going back to car then turn around. Yes there was lightning all over, but we figured pedestrians on the huckleberry were a much lower potential to get hit than other locations.
From a friend, when they let people into Cassell it was a hot mess. The wet people went down to the floor and started messing with the electronic equipment there. There was no security and apparently people thought it was okay to mess with the stadium video controls. They are still evaluating the damage that was done.
I'm very confused by this. Stadium video controls, or electronic equipment in general, on the Cassel floor?
They were literally playing with the laptops etc that are courtside that control the video boards and apparently tweeting about how cool they able to vandalize the equipment.
I was sitting directly behind them and thought it was really odd, I thought they were gonna try to pull up another game on the video board but they were just using the cameras to pan around the place. There was event staff directly in front of them and they didn't say anything. They were more concerned getting drunk college kids off the basketball floor
I read everyone's comments and it sounds like there were quite a few that had similar experiences. I want to clarify a couple of things:
1. I agree that you can't evacuate an outdoor venue with 50k people quickly, it isn't logistically possible without designing/constructing the venue for that from the get go.
2. I acknowledge that the university DID open up other venues for people to "evacuate" to.
3. I understand that this weather was freakish in nature and unexpected.
I take issue with things that I perceive that the University/AD continues to fall flat on their face:
1. Continued and ongoing poor cellular service. This has been an ongoing issue since I started buying season tickets 8 years ago but nothing ever changes and it's embarrassing that a tech school has such substandard service during scheduled events.
2. Poor communication throughout the entire process. Mobile apps, text messaging, etc. at their disposal and they couldn't provide any meaningful updates.
3. Waiting for the weather to make the decision. I watch the weather every day for work (construction management) and am constantly checking radar/lightning strike apps as it moves into the area of my project site. Obviously 8mi is too close if it's a fast moving storm and the controlling entity needs to be proactive and not reactive when it comes to the safety of potentially 65k attendees.
Everyone is making some very good points and while there are things that can't be controlled, the ones that can were objective failures in leadership and management.
Addressing comments in reverse order:
I am not sure how much of #3 is actually the school versus the ACC and ESPN. They did not want to interrupt or mess with their TV schedule.
#2 - They drastically need to improve the speakers ability or settings. During the first pregame evacuation, there were plenty of loud announcements in the stadium to go to the concourses. However, there were no speakers underneath to alert the crowd when it was clear to go back in. After the flyovers, we could see people in the East stands going back in through the West side tunnel and just decided to go back in. Same for the second evacuation.
1. My cell phone service (Verizon) has been better in the last year or two. I can send and receive texts even picture texts. My phone works well for calls. Data is just what is non-existent. I am not sure if Tech is waiting for 5G coverage and hoping that will resolve the issue.
I'm sorry but at some point a school has to stand up and say "I'm sorry about your start time but my biggest concern is the safety of my students and the guests on my campus" and tell ESPN to shove off. It's not ESPN getting sued in that situation and I'm 100% positive it's in some contract somewhere that their behind is covered in those situations.
I think a lot of this is hindsight. And people claiming to be amateur meteorologists doesn't mean anything to folks figuring out if a storm will pass or not.
If a storm with lightning within 8 miles of the venue causes an evacuation, that only gives 15 minutes of notice to evacuate before hell breaks loose.
I know folks within 10 miles north and south of Blacksburg who all reported no storm symptoms.
Could they have postponed before anything got worse than a light rain? Sure, but if nothing happened, people would be complaining just as much about the huge inconvenience of an early evacuation for no reason.
It was a freak storm with lots of rain and lightning. They didn't evacuate and cancel the 2000 GT game till lightning struck and we all tell stories about how cool and funny it was that Lee Corso's car got struck. I don't see anyone complaining about the administration putting people at risk for that.
A lot is forgiven when you're winning
To be fair, I wasn't checking the clock, but there's no way we had 15 minutes before shit hit the fan.
Once the pre-game delay was ended and the normal game activities resumed, we started packing up our tailgate to head home to Dublin. We had the advantage of heading down 81 and seeing the absolute nightmare of weather that was headed towards Blacksburg. I saw several lightning strikes and received a few notifications from the MyRadar app about them. I was watching the start of the game on my phone, waiting for them to call/postpone the game due to weather (again). But we made it all the way home (a 35-ish minute drive with the poor weather) and were able to watch some of the game on our TV before they called it.
I think the powers involved were very reluctant to err on the side of safety by calling/postponing the game a 2nd time in such a short time span. I think they were pushing the limits of safety with hope that the storm(s) would subside or miss Blacksburg so the game could continue. This is just my opinion based on what I saw was headed in that direction while driving on 81 South, and would contribute to the sentiment that very little time was given to act to get to safety.
Freak rainfall for sure.
Blacksburg (basically the stadium) registered 4.34 inches of rain, with 4.42 inches just south. Just west of town towards Toms Creek shows 0.71 inches, less than an inch in Christiansburg, and 0.01" on the east side of 81 across from Radford, and 0.04" by the AAP.
https://www.weather.gov/akq/rainfall-monitoring
so it rained on our parade...
A LOT!
And only on it.
I think I saw it was the 2nd highest amount of rainfall in a day in Blacksburg history. Freak situation for sure.
Sounds about right since I believe just shy of 5 is tops.
(Which this blows my mind because various areas around me receive 5" in just over an hour on the regular. Heck, we got 2" in 45 minutes last night like nothing happened.)
I have family in Bethany, seeing that you're in LSD I know that happens more often up there than most places. Somehow the town has seemingly given up on working on the drainage in the northern part of the downtown area.
There's not much of a solution until DelDOT decides they want to be responsible adults. They've cut off drainage to the west. And the development pressure between the beaches and 113 have added tons of runoff to an already overburdened area. That's why I work in flood mitigation in that area but live elsewhere.
You're never going to be without work!
The over-development is so frustrating. We've been going to Bethany for 30+ years, and my parents are semi-retired to a development just north of downtown. Love it there, but wish someone in local government would push back on developing every square inch of open land.