Dave Frey Statement on the WEather
Jan 2, 2016 10:27:43 GMT -5
suebhunny, mccjeff, and 2 more like this
Post by southernman on Jan 2, 2016 10:27:43 GMT -5
I'm copying this here from Facebook, just information. Sneake, please feel free to move if this is the wrong forum...
Happy New Year!
I'm writing to address some of the issues we had in 2015 and to thank you all for the constructive comments. First of all I wish everyone could have seen how great the site looked on Tuesday night before the microburst, a years worth of work had come together really well and everything was next level. At about 5:30 on Wednesday a "microburst" hit the site. After the storm passed we came out of the sea-containers to find all the fencing twisted and mangled, the porto's tossed, blown down and compromised, dozens of tree's felled, all the shade structures gone, several large tents airborne and elsewhere, cardboard trash receptacles destroyed, the land waterlogged, basically the site was wrecked. I've been in squalls and seen harsh vertical wind, but nothing like what the microburst brought early Wednesday evening. Because it came on so fast we're very fortunate that 1) it didn't happen on a show day and 2) out of the 300 or so people working there was only one minor injury. Also people 10 minutes away had no weather and were asking "what storm?" After assessing the damage we messaged that we wouldn't be able to open on Thursday and then worked overnight, (and for the next 72 hours) without sleep. We were forced to put heavy machinery onto the waterlogged land to clean-up, rebuild, repair, and replace what we could so that there would (hopefully) still be a show, unfortunately tearing up the land. All of our Captains, including Murph, (our Traffic Captain), called their deployment(s) and said "you're not working tomorrow at 5 am." Then at about 6:00 am on Thursday morning calls started coming from Food Lion parking lot, a peach orchard, and others; "people are everywhere, tell us where to send them." So Stacie rustled up the neighboring Tourism Directors so that she could message places for people to go. At about 2:00 pm on Thursday we passed a critical inspection and had a major decision to make; we could operate a compromised shortened show or cancel outright. We decided to go for it and messaged that we'd open at 6:00 am on Friday. Murph called his traffic deployment and about 50 of his 120 traffic people were able to reschedule to Friday, (not good), and several other deployments were going to be short also, like security and trash collection. We lost about 35% of our portos and 60% of our fencing, unfortunately getting replacements would be super challenging because everyone had all the porto's and temporary fencing booked for the Pope in Philadelphia. We did our best to re-schedule all the bands, re-map, get new maps made, get new signs made, re-do site lighting, re-do fencing, and basically re-do everything, and without time to do it. Moving the RV area was especially problematic because we now had to put RV's in an area without power, due to a tree falling on a transformer, and because heavy equipment had torn up that field. When we opened at 6:00 am on Friday we were completely compromised. Normally traffic comes in waves; DC, then Baltimore, then Delaware, then Philadelphia, but this year everyone was already in our immediate radius, and as I noted earlier we were under staffed. Once everyone got in we had several other challenges, like not enough porto's. So we moved porto's from camping to the Show Field at night, and then moved them back when we opened doors. Basically we did our best to put on the show with the compromised assets that we had. 2015 was the hardest show I've ever been a part of, but somehow we all made it happen, and when I say "we" I'm including everyone who attended. There are dozens of instances where the audience pitched in to help make the show happen, two farm hands dropped bales of hay, left to get another load, and returned to find that you had spread all the hay out. So I am very grateful and thankful to you for everything you did to help make Lockn' happen last year, and I wish each and every one of you the very best in 2016.
Thank you,
Dave Frey
Happy New Year!
I'm writing to address some of the issues we had in 2015 and to thank you all for the constructive comments. First of all I wish everyone could have seen how great the site looked on Tuesday night before the microburst, a years worth of work had come together really well and everything was next level. At about 5:30 on Wednesday a "microburst" hit the site. After the storm passed we came out of the sea-containers to find all the fencing twisted and mangled, the porto's tossed, blown down and compromised, dozens of tree's felled, all the shade structures gone, several large tents airborne and elsewhere, cardboard trash receptacles destroyed, the land waterlogged, basically the site was wrecked. I've been in squalls and seen harsh vertical wind, but nothing like what the microburst brought early Wednesday evening. Because it came on so fast we're very fortunate that 1) it didn't happen on a show day and 2) out of the 300 or so people working there was only one minor injury. Also people 10 minutes away had no weather and were asking "what storm?" After assessing the damage we messaged that we wouldn't be able to open on Thursday and then worked overnight, (and for the next 72 hours) without sleep. We were forced to put heavy machinery onto the waterlogged land to clean-up, rebuild, repair, and replace what we could so that there would (hopefully) still be a show, unfortunately tearing up the land. All of our Captains, including Murph, (our Traffic Captain), called their deployment(s) and said "you're not working tomorrow at 5 am." Then at about 6:00 am on Thursday morning calls started coming from Food Lion parking lot, a peach orchard, and others; "people are everywhere, tell us where to send them." So Stacie rustled up the neighboring Tourism Directors so that she could message places for people to go. At about 2:00 pm on Thursday we passed a critical inspection and had a major decision to make; we could operate a compromised shortened show or cancel outright. We decided to go for it and messaged that we'd open at 6:00 am on Friday. Murph called his traffic deployment and about 50 of his 120 traffic people were able to reschedule to Friday, (not good), and several other deployments were going to be short also, like security and trash collection. We lost about 35% of our portos and 60% of our fencing, unfortunately getting replacements would be super challenging because everyone had all the porto's and temporary fencing booked for the Pope in Philadelphia. We did our best to re-schedule all the bands, re-map, get new maps made, get new signs made, re-do site lighting, re-do fencing, and basically re-do everything, and without time to do it. Moving the RV area was especially problematic because we now had to put RV's in an area without power, due to a tree falling on a transformer, and because heavy equipment had torn up that field. When we opened at 6:00 am on Friday we were completely compromised. Normally traffic comes in waves; DC, then Baltimore, then Delaware, then Philadelphia, but this year everyone was already in our immediate radius, and as I noted earlier we were under staffed. Once everyone got in we had several other challenges, like not enough porto's. So we moved porto's from camping to the Show Field at night, and then moved them back when we opened doors. Basically we did our best to put on the show with the compromised assets that we had. 2015 was the hardest show I've ever been a part of, but somehow we all made it happen, and when I say "we" I'm including everyone who attended. There are dozens of instances where the audience pitched in to help make the show happen, two farm hands dropped bales of hay, left to get another load, and returned to find that you had spread all the hay out. So I am very grateful and thankful to you for everything you did to help make Lockn' happen last year, and I wish each and every one of you the very best in 2016.
Thank you,
Dave Frey
