It’s a nightmare scenario: a tornado tearing through a packed baseball stadium leading to scores of casualties. Such a disaster was narrowly averted Sunday night for the St. Louis Cardinals and their fans, raising the question whether Major League Baseball (MLB) has the right action plans in place for severe weather.
On Sunday evening, a violent thunderstorm with a history of producing tornadoes and large hail was on a collision course with Busch Stadium, as the Cardinals faced the Cubs in a sold-out (45,000-plus fans) nationally televised contest on ESPN.
The National Weather Service had issued a tornado watch for the region, and meteorologists were tracking a dangerous area of thunderstorms on approach to St. Louis. The storms had produced a confirmed tornado just to the northwest of St. Louis near St. Charles.
Meteorologists tracking the storm on Twitter said the game should have never been allowed to start, yet fans were allowed to fill the stands.
Eventually, when a severe thunderstorm warning was issued for downtown St. Louis, an alert was posted on the video board and fans were told to evacuate to the concourse.
As the storm had weakened just prior to its arrival downtown, no tornado warning was issued for the city. And fans were safe under cover.
But what if the tornadic storm had held together? Would fans have been safe huddling under the concourses of a baseball stadium in 100 mph or stronger winds?
Minneapolis Star Tribune Meteorologist Paul Douglas wrote just three years ago: “One of these days we’re going to have 1,000 or more deaths from a single tornado somewhere in the United States.” Tens of thousands of baseball fans as sitting ducks at a ballpark represents one terrifying way this could happen.
“I don’t think [Sunday] night’s game even should have started,” said Marshall Shepherd, host of the program “WxGeeks” on the Weather Channel, which dedicated an episode to the issue of spectator safety at sporting events in hazardous weather.
Baseball is big business, and because no was hurt and the Cardinals and Cubs were eventually able to get their game in, MLB probably views last night’s weather-related decisions as the right ones. But the alternative argument is that the Cardinals and MLB got extremely lucky a tornado did not strike the stadium and should not have allowed fans in given the tornado watch and obviously hazardous incoming weather.
Last night’s event prompts the following questions:
1. Should MLB allow games to be played and fans into stadiums when a tornado is a realistic threat?
2. If a tornado warning is issued when fans are in the stadium, does each park have a plan to quickly evacuate the stands and adequately shelter fans? Can it get fans underground or inside interior rooms (like bathrooms)? In other words, does every tornado-vulnerable stadium have tornado shelters that are well-labeled (like some airports do, like Denver)?
MLB has a responsibility to have very good, thoughtful answers to these questions in the vital interest of its fans safety.
Read more about weather and sports safety:
How the Nationals make high-pressure weather decisions
Recognizing weather risks at sports venues: Why it’s important
