By Ellen Rugeley
As evacuations of fans from high school and college stadiums due to lightning have increased over the past several years, debate over whether these evacuations are necessary or not has ensued. People have been left wondering whether these evacuations make spectators safer or rather leave them more vulnerable as they are traveling outdoors toward their cars.
Football games are rarely delayed because of lightening. As a result, most schools do not have stadium evacuation policies and procedures in place and occasionally leave people to fend for themselves as they walk to their cars in the middle of storms. Recent evacuations at schools like Notre Dame and the University of Michigan have reminded us how important it is for schools to not only have evacuation plans in effect but also be able to conduct evacuations readily and efficiently.
In its Sports Medicine Handbook, the NCAA established the “Guideline ID: Lightning Safety,” in 1997 and revised it in 2007. It states that, “when a person monitoring the weather observes 30 seconds between seeing the lightening flash and hearing its associated thunder, all individuals should have left the athletics site and reached a safer structure or location.” They also recommend “waiting 30 minutes after both the last sound of thunder and the last flash of lightning,” before resuming athletics activities.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the NCAA suggest that schools should, “monitor local weather reports each day before any practice or event,” so that they may be aware of any potential thunderstorms that may form during scheduled intercollegiate athletics events or practices.
They also recommend that schools stay informed of any National Weather Service issued thunderstorm “watches” or “warnings” and be aware of the warning signs of developing thunderstorms in the area. By using a NOAA weather radio, schools can be alerted on weather hazards in the area.
Schools should also know where the closet “safer structure or location” is to the field or playing area, and know how long it takes to get to that location. They define a safer structure or location as, “Any building normally occupied or frequently used by people (that is, a building with plumbing and/or electrical wiring that acts to electrically ground the structure).”
If there is no sturdy, frequently inhabited building, any vehicle with a hard metal roof with the windows shut provides a measure of safety. The hard metal frame and roof can protect occupants by dissipating lightning current around the vehicle and not through the occupants. Schools without a close, safer structure can rent school buses to act as safer shelters and place them around open courses or fields.
However, these are merely recommendations and thus are not actually mandated by the NCAA; instead each school is allowed to act at its own discretion.
One important concern raised by these guidelines is whether or not schools have someone ‘weather-savvy’ enough to interpret the radar data in time to allow for a safe evacuation. Also, as noted by the NCAA, “thunder may be hard to hear during an athletics event.” However, lightning detection systems can help provide a more systematic way of deciding whether to stop a game or not.
Martin Uman, recognized lightning expert and chairman of the University of Florida’s (UF) electrical and computer engineering department, said, “Now game officials, using a regular desktop or laptop computer, can spot the precise location and path of lightning strikes as they happen on a customized map so detailed it reveals streets, lakes and other landmarks.”
UF uses a lightning detection system operated by Global Atmospherics, Inc., which uses sensors throughout the nation to track lightning’s location. If lightning strikes within 10 miles of the stadium during a football game and then continues moving toward the stadium, the employees operating the system alert the head official. If the storm advances within a five-mile radius of the stadium, the teams are pulled off the field and the game is suspended.
The decision is then announced over the public address system and fans are allowed to leave the stadium and re-enter with their ticket stubs once the game restarts.
The National Weather Service estimates that only one out of every 10,000 Americans will be struck by lightning at some point in their lives, but every person who is struck by lightning is injured to some degree, and 10 percent of those injuries are fatal. If a spectator was to be struck by lightning at a sporting event, the ending result could be devastating for both the spectator and the school.
Some fans may view stadium evacuations as lengthy and aggravating, but they are necessary precautions whose benefits outweigh the costs. When public safety is concerned, it’s much better for schools to be safe rather than sorry.
