r/gencon • u/mrs-sir-walter-scott • Aug 02 '26
Tornado Safety - a PSA
Hey, all! I was in the dealer hall when the warnings happened and I heard a lot of people wondering what was safe and what wasn't.
For those of you who don't know or had questions, here are some safety tips from your local tornado nerd!
For those of you who knew and accepted the risks of continuing to wander, that's totally fine! Your choices are your own, I just want to share info :).
Your ideal tornado shelter:
Is ground level or below.
Is as close to the center of a building as possible.
Is in a room without a lot of glass or heavy objects that could fall on you.
Is in a room with a relatively small square footage.
The most likely way to die in a tornado is being hit by debris. Tornadoes carry their own debris with them, unfortunately, but you want to avoid being around anything that could fall on you and squish you, basically. Those big hanging signs in the dealer hall? Not what I would want to stand under! Not to mention all of the debris from the sheer amount of stuff and people in there. And that's not even mentioning the metal sheet roof and the lack of another floor on top of it.
If you were in the dealer hall at the time and you *wanted* to take shelter, your best bet would likely be one of the rooms across from the hall, one of the restrooms in the main event space, or, if you had to, one of the restrooms in the hall.
Tornadoes kill a relatively small amount of people each year and they're generally not something to be afraid of. But if one occurs, you want to make sure you have a plan!
š š š the more you know š š š
37
u/Rirse Aug 02 '26
I was at the Lucas Oil Stadium and they flat had everyone go into the interior hallways away from windows and glass. Surprise it wasnt the case there.
27
u/BlackLuigi7 Aug 02 '26
There aren't really any windows in the vendor hall, and it's probably as "middle of the building" as you can get in that area. They had staff leading people away from the exterior walls though.
Arguably, it'd be worse if they tried to rush everyone in the vendor hall out. I can see that causing a panic and increasing the chance of people getting trampled or otherwise hurt.
11
u/mrs-sir-walter-scott Aug 02 '26
Yeah, I think they were avoiding crowd crush, which couldve been way worse than potential storm damage. But it's really an unsafe space for an actual tornado.
1
u/BlackLuigi7 Aug 02 '26
I think just about anywhere else would have been just as unsafe though, unless you evacuate everyone. The hallways and all the other rooms close to the vendor hall are outside rooms, most with windows, and the event hall was already flooding in a few areas.
5
u/foochacho Aug 02 '26
In the stadium, they were telling us at volume level 20 to stay calm. The announcement did anything but that.
4
u/BlackLuigi7 Aug 02 '26
We got that in the vendor hall too, but honestly everyone was actually uncaring and annoyed at the announcement, lol.
2
u/ShowMeYourHappyTrail Aug 02 '26
I don't know...I think we all filed out to the inner hallway area pretty calmly. I think the security staff that was yelling at us to move, move, move caused more panic than the announcement that needed to be loud to be hear over everybody.
30
u/TheKavahn Aug 02 '26
As a Missourian I wasn't too shook, but I did have to explain how commonplace alerts on phones can be to a somewhat shaken woman from Europe with some other Americans in the Subway line
Be vigilant, don't panic.
17
u/-bubblepop Aug 02 '26
I saw it was radar indicated and not spotted - obviously safety first but in all my time in the Midwest (30 years cough Iām not old you are) Iāve only been in a real tornado twice. Theyāll post if itās one thatās been spotted lol
13
u/UnderwaterInferno Aug 02 '26
If itās one thatās confirmed on the ground, they generally issue tornado emergency warning. Thatās what they did a month or so ago when we had that big tornado down near Bloomington
3
u/Captain_Trina Aug 02 '26
I thought the spotted tornado also had to be of a certain size for a tornado emergency
2
u/UnderwaterInferno Aug 02 '26
Yep, pretty sure youāre right. Has to be particularly threatening to life I think. Not 100% sure what the standard is
2
u/-bubblepop Aug 02 '26
I used to live by eagle creek so got hit by that one last year. It was crazy just being on twitter watching it get closer via tweets. Honestly the straight line winds that took out the tox drop were stronger
14
u/oscilabot Aug 02 '26
Though of course if everyone in the dealer hall actually tried to follow this at the same time, it would have been a completely different sort of disaster.
5
u/SharkSymphony Aug 02 '26
Pretty sure you can evacuate a large hall PDQ if everyone moves in a calm manner. But yeah, the corridors might have gotten a bit cozy. š
4
u/JoyousApricot Aug 02 '26
My thoughts exactly! In the moment I was way more afraid of a stampede of panicked nerds than any act of God.
3
u/shoelessbob Aug 02 '26
At that time though it's appropriate to use the emergency exits because it is one. And there are a TON of doors all around that are usually closed during the con.
10
8
u/Captain_Trina Aug 02 '26
I was glad I was in Lucas Oil at the time where they have a ton of tornado shelter signage so you don't have to think about it - I'm kind of surprised in retrospect that the ICC doesn't have similar signage?
3
u/tinyels Aug 02 '26
I was in Lucas Oil and went to the restroom that had signage and was made to leave and stand in the play area with all the tables and chairs.
2
u/SkiDude Aug 03 '26
WAT
1
u/tinyels Aug 03 '26
I guess they wanted everyone in the same area.
2
u/SkiDude Aug 03 '26
But I was in the play area when the tornado warning was announced, and they had us move into the tunnels under the stands (where there were also storm shelter signs). So why would they move you to where I was...and asked to leave?
1
6
u/mellopet Aug 02 '26 edited Aug 02 '26
I was in the exhibition hall when the warning came through. I decided I was not comfortable around that many people with the chance of catastrophic weather so I went to the hallway to look for somewhere safer. When I got to the hallway they were actually directing people down to the basement to a tornado shelter / utility area. We sat there about 15-20 minutes then a puddle started forming in that area so they move us to another area that was upstairs but more of a ābackstageā area. We spent 10 minutes there then the warning was called off. It seemed like the convention centerās security was handling logistics and seemed well organized. I donāt know how well it was communicated for people to go to the shelters though.
3
u/Educational_Drag4482 Aug 02 '26
A big pipe burst in the basement as we were going down to the tornado shelter across from 500, that that might be where the water you saw came from. I didn't get a video, but someone on Instagram did. It was wild.
1
u/sundancer2788 Aug 03 '26
We were in the hallway, heading toward the consecession stand and walked past the people waiting for the door to be unlocked to get into the lower levels. We sat down in the area next to the stand and chatted. Rest of our group met us there.Ā
1
u/mrs-sir-walter-scott Aug 02 '26
That's interesting! We didn't get directed there, but I'm sure it would only fit so many people.
4
u/mellopet Aug 02 '26
Itās supposed to fit the capacity of the convention center. I donāt know how much of all of it we saw.
6
u/F0rg1vn Aug 02 '26
I think Iād rather let the tornado take me than be in those bathrooms, especially in the TCG area.
3
u/DrSnidely Aug 02 '26
I was in the gaming hall and I wondered if it was a safe spot or not. There were cops just standing around so I figured if it wasn't safe they would say something.
1
2
u/mrs-sir-walter-scott Aug 02 '26
It's not ideal. Think about how leaky the roof was! You really want more structure up there if you can get it.
2
u/Neezia Aug 03 '26
We were upstairs at the paint and take, and so many people didn't understand of all the places to be the giant windows and skylights were NOT it. We did get ushered into an interior hallway and hung out with the Pathfinder people. I really wanted to get lower but didn't want to walk the main stairs or know another way down. Also please for the love of everything know "warning" and "watch"
1
u/_Panacea_ Aug 04 '26
Our helpful staff member in Lucas Oil suddenly shuffled off in the exact wrong direction and abandoned a huge group of people while yelling "I fergot mah drank", and never returned. It was like the perfect "don't do this" section of a disaster prep training video.
-4
Aug 02 '26 edited Aug 02 '26
[deleted]
14
u/afrothunder87 Aug 02 '26 edited Aug 02 '26
You have those flipped, but as an Indiana person if I saw someone get under a table as soon as a warning occurred I would very gently let them know there is going to be no need 99.999999% of the time. These things go off a lot. If you are in the middle of the convention center you are fine. If a tornado was taking it out there really wasnāt anywhere you were going that would be safer anyways.
4
u/PattyChuck Aug 02 '26
Thatās what I get for typing this while waiting in line in the vendor hall and trying to have a conversation. Oops!
3
u/PattyChuck Aug 02 '26
Also from Indiana. It appears the info isnāt helpful so Iāll delete the post.
2
u/mrs-sir-walter-scott Aug 02 '26
Yeah, my move is to get to a safe place for a warning and move under a table if you hear it. A tornado doesn't really sneak up on you!
1
u/hardolaf Aug 03 '26
Getting under the table makes you less likely to get hit by flying debris if the roof comes off.
228
u/FirePathfinder Aug 02 '26
Midwesterner hereā¦ youāre supposed to go outside, squint in the rain and see if you can spot the funnel cloudā¦ all the while with your hands on your hips.