Event Safety Insights Issue One | Fall 2016 | Page 13

In the Eye

of
the
Storm
A look at the Event Safey Alliance’s

Severe Weather Summit
By Jacob Worek

“The National Weather Service has

issued a severe thunderstorm watch for the greater
Oklahoma City area…”
These were the words that greeted attendees as they
converged on Oklahoma to take part in the Event
Safety Alliance’s second-annual Severe Weather
Summit. Such forecasts aren’t particularly unusual for
this region…after all, the chorus of the official state
song mentions two separate weather phenomena
in as many lines (Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma” for the theatrically-impaired). While the worst
of the storms mercifully missed the region, the alert
set a fitting tone for the important conversation to
follow.

A Universal Threat
As past tragedies such as the Indiana State Fair stage
roof collapse demonstrate, severe weather can have
a catastrophic impact on live events. Unlike many
other safety hazards, weather is unpreventable and
universal. No matter what part of the planet you occupy, dangerous weather is possible, be it tornados,
heat, or hurricanes. With no means of forestallment,
one’s only course of action is to be prepared to respond when mother nature threatens.

Responding effectively to severe weather, however, requires an accurate understanding of the
hazard and its behavior. With a dearth of event-focused weather preparedness training available, the
Event Safety Alliance launched the Severe Weather
Summit in 2015. Held each March at the National
Weather Center in Norman, Oklahoma, the Severe
Weather Summit is a two-day exploration of meteorological phenomena and how event professionals can mitigate its impact.
Led by experts from the National Weather Service,
private forecasting firms, and the live event industry, the program aims to improve attendee’s awareness of the threats they face and provide them with
the tools necessary to effectively plan for severe
weather emergencies.

“Red Sky in the morning...”
Despite its ubiquity, weather is largely misunderstood outside of the meteorological community. Its
complex and unstable nature impels many to place
unquestioning faith in the latest cell phone applications, folksy adages, and their local television newscaster. While not objectively dangerous, reliance
on such resources without a deeper understanding
of the information they provide can have disastrous
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