A clean water dispensary was set up outside the Columbia (S.C.) Metropolitan Convention Center. (Photo by Sarah Cobb)
The “boiled water” mandate in Columbia, S.C., following torrential rains and dam breaks on Sunday, Oct. 4, has made food service very different at the city’s public assembly facilities. In fact, hosting any crowd is a logistical nightmare which led the University of South Carolina Athletic Department to move its Saturday football game against Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
The university had already canceled classes on campus for the week. Handling 85,000 football fans was deemed too stressful on the city’s recovering infrastructure.
Township Auditorium postponed its Sunday Menopause the Musical show, said Todd Miller, manager there. The crew was already in town but when local stagehands started calling in about being evacuated from their homes by boat and calls came from ticketholders in distant counties who wondered if they should make the drive, the event, produced by GFour Productions, was canceled. Only about 70 refunds have come through, he said. Most people want to see it when it is rescheduled.
Next up for Miller is Zedd Oct. 12. “I can’t see any issues of that canceling,” Miller said
Gary Goodman, manager of the South Carolina State Fair, Columbia, is gearing up for the Oct. 12-25 state fair, which historically draws 450,000-500,000. Much of the proceeds this year will be directed to flood relief, he said, also predicting a poor turnout to come. The Department of Transportation graphic of road closures looks like a Christmas tree around the fairgrounds, he said. Many people, due to difficulties in travel as well as personal obligations and tragedies, will not make that trip this year.
“I’ve never had any kind of experience of flooding,” Goodman marveled. “What a powerful force it is.”
That said, he added that the state fair and its employees were among the fortunate ones. The fair campgrounds was flooded, so they set up temporary camping grounds in the main parking lot for the carnival (North American Midway Entertainment) and concessions workers who have already begun arriving. Most of the fair’s water is trucked in anyway so the fair will not be devastated by the boiled water mandate. They switched water companies when Columbia’s treatment plant went down due to contamination. Ice is also trucked in.
“Fortunately, we went to 20-ounce bottled drinks a few years ago,” so that won’t be an issue, Goodman said.
Colonial Life Arena in Columbia, also on the USC campus, had no events scheduled until Def Leppard and Foreigner, promoted by Live Nation, on Oct. 16. Lexie Boone, AGM, said he has been in consistent touch with Live Nation’s Wilson Howard. Both agree things will be quite different in a week and a half.
At the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center, Mack Stone, GM, and Sarah Cobb, director of sales, have been making decisions on the fly as events in the city unfold. The next event scheduled is a wedding this weekend and Spectra Food Services and convention center management are deep into contingencies as they plan what they can do in terms of food service and plateware.
It will go down in the Bride Book as a most unusual event, Stone guaranteed. He’s looking for very pretty paper plates.
Columbia (S.C.) Metropolitan Convention Center in drier times.
Since the city is under a mandate not to drink or wash dishes without boiling water first, serving a large party is doable but difficult. The convention center brought in bottled water for a small event held today (Oct. 7) and served a continental breakfast of wrapped and preprepared foods. The organizers chose not to cancel since attendees were already in town, staying at hotels downtown, which are open but under similar food service restrictions.
In fact, many of the restaurants in the Vista area of Columbia around the convention center are still closed as everyone awaits repair of the canal that serves the water treatment plant that provides the drinking water for Columbia. Stone said there is hope that those will be repaired today. “They’re dropping 2,000-pound sandbags from Chinook helicopters to plug the hole. It’s happening now,” Stone said of efforts to restore potable water in Columbia.
Needless to say, everyone is glued to the news as they await the go-ahead. Meanwhile, business goes on.
Even when the “boiled water” mandate is lifted, recovery involves more steps than turning the taps back on. All of the ice in the ice machines had to be tossed out and when drinkable water is restored, those machines will have to be flushed out, up to four or five times, Stone said. They are checking with the manufacturer on proper protocol.
While the flooding in Columbia is in no way comparable to the devastation in New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina 10 years ago, it has a very personal impact on such a small town. “You knew all the neighborhoods being affected. You knew the people in those neighborhoods. When you watched the news, you could pick out people’s homes, people you know,” Stone said.
The area was hit by two feet of rain in two days and had been prepared for that. When the dams broke and the water treatment plant was impacted, the story changed.
An event that was already in the convention center on Sunday and had brought people in from out of town went on as planned, but the event manager who was supposed to go home stayed through the a second shift and spent that night at the hotel next door because roads were impassable.
A Monday-Tuesday statewide event canceled and Cobb is working with them on new dates. And a small event that drew 20 of the 40 attendees expected, was in the venue today. They were served the abbreviated continental breakfast.
Hand sanitizers are in all the bathrooms and kitchens. Paper plates and plastic forks replace dishes that have to be washed, since the boiled water mandate extends to any food service equipment as well as consumables. Bottled water is in big demand. Coffee and tea are off the menu until the water treatment plant is functional again.
No one knew when it would be “back to normal,” but it’s safe to say normal has changed after this kind of experience.
Cobb said the convention center is letting its clients make the call to hold or not hold events for now. They are working with Spectra Food Services to make alternate arrangements. They never lost running water, so the bathrooms and faucets are functional. The city did set up water trucks in the parking lot and had a few portajohns out there as well.
None of the public assembly facilities contacted was used as an emergency shelter. Evacuees were directed to their local high schools in Columbia. Boone did send out an email to staff and friends that Colonial Life Arena had a ton of dressing rooms available for anyone who needed to take a shower. They set out towels and soap, designated men’s and women’s and unlocked the doors. It was on the honor system.
It’s too early to discuss lessons learned. “You have to fly by the seat of your pants at this point,” Stone said. “ We have to plan it step by step.” There have been lots of meetings with clients and food service.
“Part of this job is to be able to react,” Cobb said. “Things are constantly changing and every situation is different.” The Monday night-Tuesday event didn’t cancel until midday Monday. The office was open all day, closed Tuesday. With schools closed, staff can’t find babysitters to come to work. And city officials are encouraging people to stay home.
First responders are otherwise engaged and would have been hard-pressed to service a college football gme. “We cover for each other,” Cobb summarized, adding that downtown Columbia was pretty deserted today.
The convention center has a dinner for 800 on Tuesday and 400 on Thursday. She is keeping in touch with the clients and none has canceled yet. “We keep them 100 percent in the loop and allow them to make the call,” Cobb said.
Boone is back in the office and went to his favorite watering hole for lunch and, other than paper products and bottled water, it was business as usual. Personnally, he and wife, Kimberly, who works with Venues Today and SEVT in her role at USC, were without water for a couple of days at home. It rained for three days straight and people were encouraged not to leave their homes. It’s a helpless feeling.
“We are one of the fortunate ones,” Goodman said of the state fair weathering the “indiscriminate storm. It’s been quite a struggle for so many.”
“But a week from today, we will have a fair.”
Thoughts and prayers – that’s about all most people can do, Boone said.
That and access to a condominium in the Turks & Caicos Islands in about a month, Goodman added, calling out to his fellow fair managers.
Interviewed for this story: Mack Stone and Sarah Cobb, (803) 545-0010; Gary Goodman, (803) 851-4630; Lexie Boone, (803) 576-9050; Todd Miller, (803) 576-2351