On Memorial Day, the Round Rock Express' Dell Diamond, Round Rock, Texas, resembled a swimming pool more than an outfield. (Photo by Round Rock Express)
As flood-ravaged Texas continues getting pounded by relentless rain, the quick-thinking staff at the Toyota Center in Houston weighed the 10 inches of rain that pelted Harris County in a six-hour period Monday night and did the only thing they could do to keep fans safe at the venue following the conclusion of the NBA Western Conference Finals game between the Rockets and Golden State Warriors: they told them to stay inside the arena.
“Scott Manley (Toyota Center assistant general manager/vice president of arena operations) was consulting with the office of emergency management, our director of security and our CEO with about five minutes left in the game and they collectively decided that at the next time out we were going to make an announcement over the public address system and put something on our video board that essentially said that due to severe weather outside we recommend that you stay in your seats following the game,” said Amanda Strudler-Mann, assistant general manager/vice president of booking and event operations. “When the announcement was made, it wasn’t necessarily too surprising to people in the arena. The announcement was actually made with about two minutes left in the game. I do know that you could hear the thunder outside over the crowd cheering, it was that loud.”
The urgency of the situation caused city officials to activate an emergency operations center and declare a high-level emergency for the first time since Hurricane Ike in 2008. Hundreds of motorists were stranded and abandoned their cars on busy Interstate 45 leading into the city.
Strudler-Mann said that people began filing out of the arena even after the announcement when it became apparent that the Rockets would win the game. Other fans congregated on the concourse in a wait-and-see mode, but Strudler-Mann said that from watching the Doppler radar it was apparent more rain would fall in the next two to three hours.
“It was a little deceiving because the roads around us weren’t flooding, but we knew that all the areas around town were,” she said.
With some 500 to 1,000 people remaining inside the venue, a concession stand opened shortly past midnight to give fans access to water, soft drinks and popcorn. It was also at that time that the staff moved fans to one side of the building.
Public address announcer John Paul Stevenson was unable to get to his house so he remained and gave frequent updates concerning street closures and high-water areas. The Weather Channel played on the center-hung scoreboard and rotated with the Houston TranStar real-time traffic map.
Between 2 and 2:30 a.m. Strudler-Mann said that staff had called all the hotels in the downtown area and began posting on the scoreboard names and phone numbers of those that had availability, a move that slightly dwindled the crowd numbers.
“The rain actually let up between 2:45 and 3:00 and we notified the remaining 200 or so people that the rain had lightened up and if they were going to make a move now was the time,” she said. “We saw about half the crowd leave at that point and got it down to under 100 people.”
Between 4:00 and 4:30 Levy Restaurants set up a free continental breakfast with bagels, cinnamon rolls, coffee and water for the remaining crowd. Once the flash flood advisory expired at 5:30 a.m., everybody exited the building.
Strudler-Mann said she left the arena at 3:00 a.m. and went across the street to a hotel where she got about two hours of sleep before returning at 5:30 to relieve Manley. She stayed until 7:00 a.m. once the building was clear and went home to make sure everything was safe before coming back in the afternoon to work a Neil Diamond show Tuesday night.
“At first, people were spread out around the arena after the game,” she said, “but we had to start conversion for the show. We asked people to move up higher in the section and eventually we moved everybody into the Club West so we could have everybody on one side of the building. We also eventually set up power strips so people could charge their cell phones. We got a ton of compliments after the fact, things like ‘Thank you for letting us stay and not kicking us out and providing necessities to us.’”
Rockets’ star Dwight Howard even stayed around after the game and milled around on the court. He conducted an interview with a local station and gave those remaining a rare somewhat up-close opportunity while he was out of uniform.
Strudler-Mann said that, “Scott handled everything extraordinarily well and our whole staff did likewise. I really think we did everything as best as we could with this being the first time we ever had to handle something like this.”
Looking back (“I haven’t had a chance to go to sleep to process what we might have done differently”), Strudler-Mann said it would have been better to have posted hotel listings sooner.
“But you can’t force anybody out, right?” she asked. “It’s a liability to you. Our main concern was always safety first. We were never going to kick anybody out if we believed we were putting them in harm’s way. But you also know they can’t stay here forever. How do you tactfully encourage them to leave?
“When we finally came up with a list of hotels, we know that certainly started helping the situation, and just keeping that static image up there of the hotels. I think eventually people got bored with that and seeing cool Rockets’ highlights.”
Amanda Strudler-Mann's Lessons Learned
1. Make sure someone is monitoring social media for not only the team but especially the venue and responding in real time
2. Make sure the appropriate department heads are relaying a consistent message throughout the venue
3. If you see you’re in it for the long haul, and it’s safe to leave the venue without driving, communicate lodging options early on
4. In the moment (on the fly) we wanted to make sure we were providing food and beverage options so we reopened a concession stand … in hindsight maybe we should have discounted the prices. I still would not have comped at that point (midnight) and had people feel like it was a party. We did comp food and beverage at 4:00 a.m. which was an appropriate time to do so.
Central Texas Weather Woes
Round Rock is situated just north of Austin in central Texas and is home to the Round Rock Express, the Triple A affiliate baseball team of the Texas Rangers. Dell Diamond is the 8,722-seat crown jewel of a stadium that hosts the Express.
Just hours after flooding, the team was able to drain all the water from Dell Diamond's outfield. (Photo by Round Rock Express)
On a Memorial Day designated as Military Appreciation Day, the stadium’s outfield more closely resembled one large swimming pool as water swamped the grounds.
“All of our staff was here because we were supposed to have a game,” said Jill Cacic, the team’s director of communications. “We had fans coming from all over to the game and we were busing in soldiers and military personnel. But we obviously called the game because we didn’t want people to be on the roads because of us, whether employees or fans.”
Amazingly, just hours later, the field’s drainage system cleared the water from the outfield. The team’s website boasts that the drainage system is a major factor in the Express having suffered only six rainouts in more than 920 home games since the stadium opened in 2000.
“None of the stadium or concourse was flooded,” Cacic said. “Our staff was not in danger. There were some high-water crossings that were closed off around the area, but it was just an inconvenience as far as getting home.”
The weather has disrupted the team since last Saturday, when a game was postponed and made up as a doubleheader on Sunday. Monday’s game was also postponed with a Tuesday doubleheader.
“We were in a situation where we were playing a team (Albuquerque) for the only time,” Cacic said. “We had a day game against them Saturday but it was postponed. We did a doubleheader on Sunday but had to start it at 10:30 in the morning because there was a 4:45 curfew that afternoon on the game to make sure they made their flight out of town.”
Cacic lives in Austin and did not get home until 7:00 p.m. Monday night. Friends had been sending her pictures of her street, which she described as a river. She was able to safely reach her house and saw debris floating down the road.
“It’s one of those things where we needed all this rain but we didn’t need it all at the same time,” she said.
Preparing For Bad Weather
Rob Matwick, executive vice president of business operations for the Texas Rangers, knows about bad weather. Matwick worked for the Houston Astros for 21 years and went through tropical storm Allison and Hurricane Rita. Now in his eighth year with the Rangers, Matwick said he has never seen anything in North Texas like he has witnessed in recent weeks with nonstop rain, flooding and tornadoes.
“We have sort of been dodging games getting rained out, but overall I have never seen anything like this,” Matwick said. “In the last home stand we had a night game and would get rain in the morning. If we had a day game we would get rain at night. We’re not sure why those things happen but we don’t try to figure them out, either.”
The Rangers return to Globe Life Park at Arlington on Thursday following a nine-game road trip. With nothing but rain on an almost daily basis while the team was away, Matwick said that some protocols were in place to deal with the nasty weather.
“At the start of this road trip, we would typically cover the mound and home plate,” he said. “We would probably want as much water as we could get for the grass. Now as we get closer to playing games again on Thursday, if we anticipate we are going to have rain we would actually cover the field.
“The challenge is the clay on the infield. Clay holds water and that water just comes up to the top, unlike the grass areas which are relatively easier to maintain just because their root is sand and that rain just sort of penetrates through the sand and goes away pretty quickly.
“With our field and because of the way it is sand-based we are fortunate in that the grass areas drain quickly. That’s why you see any time you get rain at a baseball game in the big leagues they’re always hustling to get the tarp and get the infield covered to protect the clay.”
Matwick said the team works with veteran local meteorologist Brad Barton as well as with Mark Fox and staff at the National Weather Service. The team also works with a company from Colorado to help with lightning detection.
“We have different protocols in place depending on where the lightning is,” Matwick said. “We have a web-based weather resource here that myself and our vice president of ballpark operations read online, which is helpful when we can read it right along while we are talking to Brad. We can see what he’s seeing.”
Matwick said that his team uses a significant email list for internal communications to provide weather updates when necessary.
“We will start at 8:00 a.m. for a 7 o’clock game at night and literally notify everyone from the team president and general manager on to people working concessions, retail, the upper concourse and parking lots, just to warn people to be prepared and plan appropriately for that given day,” he said.
Matwick said that parking staff is encouraged to take a personal vehicle in inclement weather.
“They are in exposed areas, and particularly in lightning and thunderstorm situations, we want them to be able to get into a car to at least get some form of protection. That is particularly so if we get lightning, straight-line heavy winds or tornadic situations.”
Interviewed for this article: Jill Cacic, (512) 255-2255; Rob Matwick, (817) 622-7975; Amanda Strudler-Mann, (713) 726-6446