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Be ready. That’s the call, especially during this horrific fire and hurricane season.
These past few weeks, everyone has been reaching out to loved ones in danger of floods, winds and fire, the worst in decades. As always, venue managers are in the eye of the storm, setting up shelters, battening down hatches, hosting benefits, and welcoming politicians and celebrities.
Given the fact that when disaster strikes, you and your family are personally at risk as well, it’s truly a calling to be among the first responders. Just like law enforcement and medical personnel, venue managers are true servants to humanity.
Mark Miller, NRG Park/SMG; Luther Villagomez, George R. Brown Convention Center; and Ned Collett, Oak View Group, all Houstonians on the rescue/serve side of Hurricane Harvey’s direct hit on that city, took it in stride. Pros are prepared.
Mark Miller’s personal saga went like this: “I actually went to rescue my son, Ken, because he had water coming up in his neighborhood. I waded in and carried him and his one-and-a-half-year-old son out. The water was knee deep. We got them to our house. Monday morning they said ‘you need to get out of your house now.’ The Brazos River was expected to go to 61 feet and our levy was only 59 feet. They were saying get out now or you won’t be able to get out later. Fortunately the water on his street had gone down, so we went back to his house.”
“You don’t know what to expect. You watch it minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour to figure out what you have to do.”
While he was playing musical houses on the personal front, Miller was also making his way to work, setting up the 300-acre NRG Park as shelter and staging area for law and medical personnel. They even became a helipad.
“It all worked out. On Tuesday, I got from my son’s house to the building and I didn’t have any issues. We were literally working on the shelter on Tuesday and Wednesday. Wednesday, I got in the car to see how far I could get, and got all the way to my house, and turned the power and the alarms back on.”
Collett borrowed a boat and help from his neighbor, a fisherman, and spent a day rescuing neighbors, including Melissa McGee Singleton and her family. Villagomez shrugged off the drama, saying his family was luckily in a safe area, while he was at the convention center, sheltering up to 10,000 people. The Incident Command is sort of like any event coordination committee, just less predictable.
Sitting here in balmy Southern California, our hearts and hopes are with all of those in danger and post-trauma mode. Disaster is nondiscriminant. All we can do from here is keep in touch. But those of you in the thick of it, wow, you are heroes.
God grant you many years to be ready.