Tornado and severe weather

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stephanie

Member
Maybe I missed this in previous threads, if so I apologize.

I live at the far end of "tornado alley" and since this spring has been proven to be rather active in the storm area this has been on my mind a good bit lately.

About a month ago I had a private group in the theater doing a recording session. I had been monitoring the weather all day and when the sirens went off this time I knew it was time to grab the admin staff, my clients on stage and head for the basement. As I work for a city owned PAC, I have the added fun of having an athletic center next door and further up the building, a small convention space. As soon as I had everyone safely assembled in the basement, the power went off and the generator didn't kick on, and silly me, I didn't have a flashlight on hand. As I made my way back up the stairs to grab a flashlight, I heard movement - the folks from the athletic club were trying to find their way to my basement with little success. After the distribution of several usher flashlights and instructions on where to go I had the sweaty contents of the athletic club in the basement of my theater as well.

Here's the thing: I question the wisdom of the decision to evacuate the 100+ people downstairs. It took 15 minutes to move all those people in an orderly manner down those stairs. If a tornado HAD hit my theater, those people would have still been in transit. If it took that long to move 100 people, how much longer would it take to move say, 900? quite a while.

I've heard a good bit of conversation back and forth between the city administrator and the fire marshal but no consensus as of yet. Since TN is known for their twisters, I would like to be able to contribute in a meaningful way to their conversation. It seems to me that leaving the audience in their seats would be safer.

What do you do at your theatre?
 
stephanie said:
Maybe I missed this in previous threads, if so I apologize.

I live at the far end of "tornado alley" and since this spring has been proven to be rather active in the storm area this has been on my mind a good bit lately.

About a month ago I had a private group in the theater doing a recording session. I had been monitoring the weather all day and when the sirens went off this time I knew it was time to grab the admin staff, my clients on stage and head for the basement. As I work for a city owned PAC, I have the added fun of having an athletic center next door and further up the building, a small convention space. As soon as I had everyone safely assembled in the basement, the power went off and the generator didn't kick on, and silly me, I didn't have a flashlight on hand. As I made my way back up the stairs to grab a flashlight, I heard movement - the folks from the athletic club were trying to find their way to my basement with little success. After the distribution of several usher flashlights and instructions on where to go I had the sweaty contents of the athletic club in the basement of my theater as well.

Here's the thing: I question the wisdom of the decision to evacuate the 100+ people downstairs. It took 15 minutes to move all those people in an orderly manner down those stairs. If a tornado HAD hit my theater, those people would have still been in transit. If it took that long to move 100 people, how much longer would it take to move say, 900? quite a while.

I've heard a good bit of conversation back and forth between the city administrator and the fire marshal but no consensus as of yet. Since TN is known for their twisters, I would like to be able to contribute in a meaningful way to their conversation. It seems to me that leaving the audience in their seats would be safer.

What do you do at your theatre?
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When I was at high school, I'm not sure of the procedure at the college, but we were told to announce to the audience a tornado warning was issued and to have everyone remain at their seats. We would then calmly explain to them what was going to happen. If it was a full house we would tell them to slide out of their chairs and get as close to the seat in front of them on their knees covering their head.

We didn't have a basement but we did have a pit that was easily accessed from the side of the audience. So if there was less than 200 people we would have them go in there. Also with our balcony the way it is we would have them head to the stair case 20 feet behind the entrance of the balcony seating. This is a high school auditorium so there is almost zero storage space.

That said in the 20+ years of living here in Sioux Falls, I have never (knock on wood) seen a tornado come close enough to town to cause damage. Now there are towns close by that have been hit it just seems that the natural peninsula we were built on causes weird wind shifts that make tornadoes difficult to get into the city.
 
We don't have tornadoes here but I have a few thoughts. Every public place in areas prone to sudden, severe weather should have a National Weather Service SAME radio where staff can hear it alarm for weather warnings. A good one costs much less than $100. Outdoor venues should have them, too.

Aux generators are maintenance intensive creatures. They have to be exercised and tested regularly. A diesel generator needs to be run for a minimum of 30 minutes, once per month (some say once a week). Natural gas and propane engines are more forgiving of less exercise. A simulated outage test with the load transferred should be done at least once per year. Generators need block or coolant heaters to ensure reliable starting. It does no good to have a generator if it isn't given regular attention.

Stairs, hallways, all public areas, and places used for shelter absolutely need battery backup emergency lighting. These need regular maintenance, too. They are not terribly costly to buy and install. I'm surprised that fire authorities haven't already required them in your building.
 
I've worked in Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Illinois...

Most theatres are designed to survive a tornado. Odds are there is not a place to really go with the audience, so best best is to just stay put. Thats what we did in all of the venues I worked at in these states. It can be more of an issue to move people. Your AHJ will be able to tell you what to do. Your building was built with certain building codes in mind, just follow those. Theatres are built much better then houses, so really the same precautions don't really relate. You don't have the glass issue in a theatre. The only issue you really would have is a direct hit... and if that happens even being in a basement is not going to help you.

In my current building we also just stay put... and its 100' above ground sitting on a pedestal. If we have time we evacuate into the base of the building. However, that can take up to 10 minutes and involves a dozen flight of stairs. The risk of trampling is pretty high, so its only done when it has to be done.

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In reality though, you should have a procedure for earthquake/tornado/fire/bomb threat/hostage situation/medical emergency/whatever else written down. If you think a situation is going to happen, all staff should meet and be briefed about what their job is in an evacuation at the beginning of the night.
 
Footer said:
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Footer, While that looks like a really cool place on the outside, although it looks like it might present some challenges inside!

Much like FMEng, we don't get that much severe weather here, but we have big emergency lights that are tested regularly. The space I'm in most often isn't to big for a person with a flashlight to go onstage and tell everyone whats going on in an event of a power outage. Even if we did have a need to move people to a basement, its on just big enough for about 150 people at most (cast+crew) let alone the 750 it seats.
 
chausman said:
Footer, While that looks like a really cool place on the outside, although it looks like it might present some challenges inside!
Click to expand...
Not really actually. You would not know your in a giant egg while your inside it. Hell, we have to take road crews outside so they can actually see what they are in because they don't believe it. There are two theatres in there, a 980 seater and a 450 seater. The larger theatre has 52 linesets and a 55' grid. Besides having to load everything up through a 10'x20' freight elevator and having to deal with state security its a great space.
 
Freight elevator, well, that answers my question. Though I was hoping for some sort of state of the art teleporter.
 
Drmafreek said:
Freight elevator, well, that answers my question. Though I was hoping for some sort of state of the art teleporter.
Click to expand...

Ya, that is the one downside to the space. The audience comes in via 4 passenger elevators that are manned by elevator operators. If everything goes as planned, we can move an audience out in 10 minutes or less. There are 4 stairwells that also go down. They are designed to not have any point that is wider or narrower then any other part. I have never been there for a full evacuation, but I don't want to be either. Its one of the reasons we have a zero tolerance policy for any drops out of flameproofing or anything else that could cause an issue.
 
DuckJordan said:
When I was at high school, I'm not sure of the procedure at the college, but we were told to announce to the audience a tornado warning was issued and to have everyone remain at their seats. We would then calmly explain to them what was going to happen. If it was a full house we would tell them to slide out of their chairs and get as close to the seat in front of them on their knees covering their head.

We didn't have a basement but we did have a pit that was easily accessed from the side of the audience. So if there was less than 200 people we would have them go in there. Also with our balcony the way it is we would have them head to the stair case 20 feet behind the entrance of the balcony seating. This is a high school auditorium so there is almost zero storage space.

That said in the 20+ years of living here in Sioux Falls, I have never (knock on wood) seen a tornado come close enough to town to cause damage. Now there are towns close by that have been hit it just seems that the natural peninsula we were built on causes weird wind shifts that make tornadoes difficult to get into the city.
Click to expand...
Do you work in a theater in Soiux Falls? I'm a HS student going on a mission trip to Soiux falls this summer. We usually do fun stuff like go to see a theater production also. And when we stay at churches i plug my laptop into the sound system and throw a wicked dance party.
 
Back on topic... ;)

I've actually had two weather-related experiences in the past week. Tonight, the Legally Blonde tour was in one space I work in. (Great show, by the way) About 15 minutes prior to curtain, we get a horrid wave of rain come through, and the tornado sirens go off. We evacuated the balcony to downstairs until the storm was past. I'm not entirely sure of the procedure if the situation worsened.

My primary space (University PAC) has been focusing a lot on emergency procedures lately, after we had a performer have a seizure on stage (and fall off the back of the choir risers, and let a stretcher in behind the choir without the audience noticing) and my TD went to a few safety sessions at USITT. We had the power go out in the middle of a concert on Tuesday. It was only a severe thunderstorm, so we just let the audience hang around until it eased up if they wanted to. We did notice that several of our emergency lights aren't working, and the audience that stayed looked like moths clustered under the two brightest spots in the theatre. In case of tornado, our procedure is to move everyone under the balcony. If it is only a rehearsal with a limited number of people, we will move to the dressing rooms and/or green room, which are pretty well centered in the building between the two theatres, and with no outside access.
 
Thanks for the input. Fire Marshall agreed that moving folks that far would not be a good idea. He also suggested that moving people into the halls was the best practice- not leaving them in their seats.

We actually had a first run at this tonight. (Memphis has been hammered tonight) We ran into some resistance and frustration from patrons and performers mainly because the sirens went off for over an hour.

Hopefully, this batch of storms will prove to be an anomaly and not the new norm.
 
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stephanie said:
Thanks for the input. Fire Marshall agreed that moving folks that far would be a good idea. He also suggested that moving people into the halls was the best practice- not leaving them in their seats.

We actually had a first run at this tonight. (Memphis has been hammered tonight) We ran into some resistance and frustration from patrons and performers mainly because the sirens went off for over an hour.

Hopefully, this batch of storms will prove to be an anomaly and not the new norm.
Click to expand...

Here's hoping you made it through todays hell ok. It looks like a lot of Tennesee and Alabama got slammed HARD.
 
Van said:
Here's hoping you made it through todays hell ok. It looks like a lot of Tennesee and Alabama got slammed HARD.
Click to expand...

Thanks Van, today was quiet compared to last night's outbreak. Only ONE tornado warning for my theater. Mississippi was not as lucky
 
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