UI official: Kinnick evacuation went well

IOWA CITY - A University of Iowa official said the rare evacuation of Kinnick Stadium Saturday due to a lightning delay in the game went smoothly, with no reported injuries and few problems with the crowd.

"The fact of the matter is, quickly evacuating a crowd of over 70,000 people is very difficult, and we feel that things went very well," Chuck Green, director of UI Public Safety, said Tuesday. "We had to do the best we could with that situation."

It's the first time Green and other officials can recall having to evacuate Kinnick Stadium in at least 20 years. Green said he hasn't received any public complaints or comments about how the evacuation went during the Hawkeye football home opener.

But one season ticket holder said he thinks fans didn't receive enough direction about where to go once they left their seats. Scott Peters, 32, of Omaha, said many fans stood around in the concourse area, which led to a back-up of people. Peters called the Johnson County Sheriff's Office after the game to voice his concerns.

"Everybody was just complaining about how no one knew what to do exactly once you got out of the stadium," Peters said. "Nobody was moving the crowd on."

Green said the university, in conjunction with the other agencies that provide law enforcement at football games, has emergency plans for stadium evacuation, but the directions depend on the scenario. The evacuation for a possible tornado, for example, would be different than the evacuation for lightning or one for a man-made emergency, Green said.

The decision to evacuate is discussed by numerous entities, including the UI police, other public safety officers, the athletics department, and the NCAA game officials on the field, who are in charge of the decision for the players, Green said.

The evacuation was announced over the stadium public address system, and a weather map and announcements also were put on the large video board, Green said. Sections were told where to exit, and they were told what nearby buildings they could evacuate to, he said.

But in this case, fans were not forced to leave the concourse area once they evacuated their seats, he said.

"We didn't try to force people out of the concourse area at that time because that was a good sheltering spot for them," Green said.

Peters said there was some confusion among fans about where exactly to go, and since many did stay in the concourse it led to a bottleneck. His group eventually went out to their car in the parking lot, but returned to the stadium when the game resumed.

Many fans left for the day when the game was delayed, Green said, which helped with traffic later. It also likely made a difference that the Hawks had the game well in hand when the delay was called, meaning fans were more likely to evacuate than they might have been if the game was a tense contest.

While stadium evacuations are rare, Green said any event like this is an opportunity to evaluate the plans in place.