By R.V. Baugus
Tom Bedard, ABCP, Meteorologist and Business Continuity Specialist based in Wichita, Kansas, is not your typical “weather guy.” How can he be when he proposed to his wife at … wait, we’ll save this most interesting story at the end.
Bedard will also be familiar to the IAVM family when he presents a session entitled Venue Safety and 
Reducing the Impact of Weather on Events at the Severe Weather Preparedness program and the Academy for Venue Safety & Security (AVSS) in Las Vegas on March 4.
Bedard stays busy as a meteorologist, service implementation manager, and emergency management & business continuity professional for AccuWeather for Business in Wichita. His team manages client onboarding, customer service, technical implementation, and consulting projects. Outside of AccuWeather, he is an active volunteer firefighter/EMT for Colwich Fire Department and an active K9 Human Remains Detection Dog Handler for the Sedgwick County Volunteer K9 SAR team.
Thankfully, he was not too busy that he couldn’t spare a moment to visit with us regarding his session. Oh, and about that marriage proposal.
Speak some about your topic of Enhancing Venue Safety and Reducing the Impact of Weather on Events. It seems like not a year goes by that we do not have a major news story dealing with some event that has had a major weather event impact it and its guests.
Guests know that weather impacts their experience at an event, so how a venue responds to it is as much a matter of customer service as it is a matter of safety. They expect venue managers to know the forecast and have a tried and tested plan to respond to it. Their experience at an event becomes poor (or frightening) when they feel like they’re on their own to protect themselves. Those are the stories that capture media attention and end up in the news. My sessions at AVSS and the Severe Weather Preparedness Training are focused on guiding the emergency planning process so that venues anticipate the storm and stay out of the news.
What are the most common oversights that venues make when it comes to planning for severe weather?
Venue and event managers are masters at planning, logistics, and operations. They know the wind thresholds for every piece of equipment and they’re very well-practiced with crowd safety operations. The oversight we most often see them committing is not coordinating with a meteorologist to get expert opinion on their weather plan. It’s important to verify the warning criteria that they’re using as triggers and to confirm that they’re making the right assumptions. I’m still encountering safety plans that assume that every thunderstorm travels at 60 mph and that all tornadoes move from southwest to northeast. It’s not hard to get in contact with degreed meteorologists in the National Weather Service or the private sector and I’d be happy to make that connection for anyone while I’m out in Las Vegas!
-Let’s flip the script if you can share a quick story about how proper planning helped alleviate what could have been a possible disastrous situation.
The July 31st, 2021, Garth Brooks concert at Nissan Stadium in Nashville is a recent success story that was presented at the 2022 American Meteorological Society’s Annual Meeting. Although the sky was clear when gates opened at 5 pm, the concert’s 7 pm start was delayed due to concerns about a storm approaching from the northwest. As the storm approached, the stadium posted a “Lightning Advisory” shortly after 7:30, asking guests to proceed to the shelter area. The stadium’s twitter account shared the delay and more updates as the storm moved overhead. Although weather ultimately forced the event to be postponed, no lightning-related injuries occurred despite the intensity of the storm.
Any primary or main takeaway you would like your audience to leave with and take back to their venue?
Here are the three takeaways that I’m encouraging my AVSS session attendees to think about:
Risk assessments for weather hazards should be specific. “Severe thunderstorm” as a hazard is more helpful when it’s broken into individual 30 mph wind gusts, lightning within 8 miles, hail >1”, and flash flooding hazards.
Vulnerability assessments should be equally as specific. The planning process should uncover what windspeeds compromise equipment safety, what evacuation times are expected with guests, and if guests will be more susceptible to high heat.
Communicate early and often. Acknowledging the cliché, share public-friendly versions of your severe weather plan with your guests alongside the channels that they can use to find updates.
OK, you can’t Google your name without hearing about your famous marriage proposal last year. For our members who do not know about it, would you please share just one more time? I doubt this one will ever be topped!
There’s no higher form of romance for severe weather-loving meteorologists than getting engaged in front of a tornado. My girlfriend of five years and my best friend are both exceptional operational meteorologists at our company and were working together on what would be the last good storm chase of the spring. The right ingredients came together for a slight severe weather risk in southeast Colorado, so we hopped in my best friend’s truck with his wife on a Saturday morning and headed west from Wichita. We found a storm that we wanted to follow for the day and stuck with it as it struggled through a less-than-favorable environment. After repositioning ourselves a few times and getting through the maze of storm chasers, we found a safe spot south of the circulation just in time for a large cone tornado to form. My fiancé had no idea of the intent of the chase and the entire day was an incredible success.
