It was 1996, but Bob Dugan remembers it like it was yesterday. Soccer referee John Wade, after being alerted by a weather-detection system that a storm was on its way, removed fourth- and fifth-grade kids from the field of play. Once the storm passed, they resumed activity at Northeast Park in Park Ridge, Ill. The belief was that the storm had moved over Lake Michigan approximately 45 miles away. But instead, the storm came back, and a lightning strike killed the 20-year-old referee.
The following year, the city held a dedication ceremony in Wade’s honor. Potential bad weather was expected to roll in, but well after the 6:30 p.m. ceremony. Dugan, president of Thor Guard, a lightning prediction equipment manufacturer, was driving home from the ceremony when lightning came down from the sky. “I had a sick feeling that it came down in Park Ridge,” he says. “I got home and there were messages galore.”
Lightning had indeed struck in Park Ridge on the exact date it had done so the previous year. But this time, the only casualty was a scoreboard and two light poles at one of the city’s major parks. What no doubt saved lives that day by alerting people to take shelter was a lightning detection system Dugan had rushed to install — one that hadn’t even been tested.
“Because of how the sky looked, everyone thought it was a test,” remembers Dugan. “But everyone sought shelter and 12 minutes after the horn sounded, lightning struck.”
The historic incident not only changed how Dugan approached business — park districts now account for the largest percentage of his client base — but demonstrated the frightening unpredictability of how weather-related incidents can impact players, fans and officials at sporting events.
A CLOUDY APPROACH
Bob Roberts, emergency manager for Tulsa (Okla.) Public Schools, points the finger at one common mistake that is consistently made by athletics administrators, particularly at the high school level, in terms of their weather preparation and management. “It’s lack of awareness of what the threat is and what steps need to be taken to protect themselves,” he says. “With tornadoes or high winds, they all too often rely on outdoor sirens, but by the time you hear outdoor sirens and you have 3,000 people that you’re trying to get out of the stadium and into a safe place, it’s too late.”
Unpredictable weather conditions are commonplace in Oklahoma, something Roberts’ colleague Steve Friebus, coordinator for sports medicine for Tulsa Public Schools, found out after growing up in southern California. “You knew when a rain storm was coming for three days in southern California. Here, you’re lucky to get 30 minutes of lead time,” Friebus says. “Pop-up storms come out of nowhere, so you have to be paying attention to weather reports, forecasts and be in touch with various monitoring systems and meteorologists. The type of weather threat and type of sporting event should determine what type of lead time you need to clear a venue.”
Steve Wilkinson, warning coordinator meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Jackson, Miss., branch, has worked with the National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security (NCS4) to communicate the importance of accessing weather information, along with consulting an expert meteorologist, to help sports security leaders make the proper safety-related decisions.
“For professional, NCAA or even high school sporting events, the information they need is there, they just need to tap into the proper resources,” Wilkinson says. And while numerous weather conditions can impact outdoor sports from the spring through fall seasons, lightning remains the top weather-related issue. Working exclusively with emergency-management personnel, meteorologists from the National Weather Service can provide up-to-the-minute weather information at no charge, but that’s as far as the service goes.
“We don’t make the decisions, we simply provide the information for someone else to make the decision,” Wilkinson says. “We can tell someone that there’s a storm coming with lots of lightning and strong winds in 30 minutes, and they may choose to not do anything with it or they may choose to shut the event down and reconvene when the threat’s over.”
