The largest tornado to hit St. Louis in 44 years caught up with 3 BIG XII officials this weekend just shortly after the 3 amigas (Ginny James, Buffy Powell, and Vickie Wright) picked up and regrettably refused rental car insurance at a local Enterprise rent-a-car business in Bridgeton, MO, just outside of St. Louis.
Moments after leaving Enterprise, we were quickly alerted by the rental car’s radio of an extreme thunderstorm with golf-ball sized hail anticipated in Bridgeton in mere minutes. $500 car damage deductibles split three ways start dancing in our heads J Hard rain...kerplunk...hail stone, thankfully only 1. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away J
Minutes after arriving at our Embassy Suites Hotel we hear the tornado sirens sounding off... we are quickly herded into the hotel’s interior kitchen where we along with numerous other hotel guests wait out the F4 tornado (F4= 200 mph winds). Some damage was done to the west wing of the hotel, all lights went black, and a gas leak was the known immediate damage. For God’s sake....don’t anyone light a match. Buffy has already fallen during our stampede to the interior kitchen, we pick her up, stop her bleeding, ice her injuries, pack up our things and get the hell out of Dodge. We travel 2 hours to get 7 miles to check in to our weekend home for our women’s match, Missouri hosting Colorado. The match seemed to take less time than our trip to the hotel, but we’ve got memories for a lifetime and are $105 richer from our BIG XII trip. J
Here's an account by Buffy Powell:
Well, I experienced my first trip to Missouri! Ginny James from Houston, Vickie Wright from Austin and I arrived on Friday to officiate Missouri/Colo. Big 12 Women's match at Mizzou. Our flight was delayed in Houston so we missed our connections in Dallas to meet up with Vickie. Therefore, Vickie had to wait for us for quite a while. We finally were all together to ride the shuttle to Enterprise where Ginny had reserved a car. All was on plan till it was revealed that Ginny's drivers licensed had expired on her birthday (Feb. 27th), so Vickie had to rent the car. The Enterprise Lady wanted us to get hail ins. which we refused. When we were driving out of the Enterprise lot the tornado siren was on. We were on the way to our hotel when the radio said there was golf ball hail in the area. Oh LORD!! Anyway, we made it to our hotel and got checked in with out any problems. We didn't unpack and were watching the news when it was announced that a tornado was 4 mins. away from our area. We threw our luggage in the bathroom and ran to the elevator (we were on the 4th floor) We exited the elevator and all power failed in the hotel. A hotel employee tried to lead us to the kitchen. I tripped over a 2 foot high planter that was 2 feet long and have a bunch of cuts, scrapes and sore spots. We were in the kitchen where there were no windows (but lots of knives)! Anyway. the tornado passed by and we were allowed to come out of the kitchen. The hotel staff was clueless as to how to handle emergencies. We sat on the first floor and heard someone say there was a gas leak outside!!!!! We decided to go up 4 flights of stairs and get our luggage and get out of there. Ginny called another Embassy Suites that was 7 miles away to make us another reservation. We had 3 GPS and it took us two hours to get to the other hotel because of overturned 18 wheelers, wrecks and downed power lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This Embassy Suites was owned by a different Co. and was a little more expensive. WE DID NOT CARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We arrived at the Univ. of Missouri on time for our matches. The Referee was from Idaho. There was an official from Iowa and one from Kansas and then us 3 from Texas! Missouri had a nice indoor facility with 4 courts. (Us 3 awesome Texas officials did the doubles). Afterwards, we went to a nice pup/brewery for some great food! Today- Easter- we arrived on time back in Texas. The destruction from the tornado could have been so much worse!!! I t was thought that it wa an F3, but after the officials sifted through the devistation, they determined it was an F4 with winds over 200 mph!!!!!!!!!! The Missouri press called Friday's aftermath the Good Friday Miracle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That sounds good for me! We were jokingly saying we should get hazordous duty pay. Oh well. We were so LUCKY and/or Blessed! Buf
22 comments:
First and foremost thank God they were not hurt. Everything else is secondary.
Am I reading this correctly? Their net for working that match was $105?
Why are three officials brought in from Texas to work a match in Missouri? In the entire St Louis or Columbia area, there are not 6 ITA officials?
Amazing
Its not monetarily feasible to travel from Texas to Kansas, pay for a hotel room, rent car, and a plane ticket. The end product is about $105.
But then its also not psychologically feasible when you have to dodge tornadoes.
Vickie, Buffy, and Ginny are indeed wise women. They knew when to run for the dark kitchen...
Damn, that match cost Kansas a plethora of pretty pennies!
Wise? Why would anyone in their right mind travel from Texas to MO, rent a car, spend the night just to work a Big XII dual match? Do you all enjoy
being slaves?
When is somebody going to put some limits around these travel expenses for conference matches? There aren't 6 ITA officials closer to Lincoln than Norman, OK? I realize Nebraska is gone from the conference, but this pattern must go on throughout many matches.
Wish I had blank checks I could write every week!!
The 3 Amigos forgot to inform the readers of the daily $40 per diem, + another $110 for room allowance and then + the $350 maximum travel allowance, which they obviously qualified for the max.; in addition to the $105 match fee.
They sent an extra official to Missouri/Kansas, because a St. Louis official was sent to Lincoln, NE.
I don't believe they made money on the travel expenses so they still went to all that trouble for $105.00
I can think of better places to go
for an all girls night out rather than go through an ordeal in the state
of MO.
Were they going to share a room with 3?
These three are great people and great company, but I would rather have their company in the great state of Texas.
They are definitely three of the best and we're all glad they made it back home safely--regardless of how much money they did or didn't make.
Yes, we're all happy no one got hurt. On the other hand, when you travel voluntarily, you take your chances.
I don't really think it's about the money Randy, rather it's about the waste and stupidity of flying folks all over the country to handle matches that could have been handled locally. As someone asked earlier, when is the conference going to wake up and put a stop to this frequent flyer nonsense?
If they indeed are 3 of the best, why were they sent to Missouri instead of to College Station? One of the Amigos lives only 94 miles away in Houston. Another only lives 96 miles away in Round Rock. How far did the trucked in officials have to drive? It's over 175 miles to the DFW area.
Myabe it was a Men Match vs. Women Match assignment decision. Or maybe it was all about the $$$.
We made absolutely no money other than the $105 for officiating the dual match. All expenses were itemized to the penney for all 3 of us. We rented a car and split the cost 3 ways as we also did for the hotel. We received $40 per diem per day (I think all 3 of us went over the $40 per day limit but didn't add the additional money to our expense report. We did add in the other expenses noted above for car and hotel.
Would I want a steady diet of this....absolutely not. But as an assignor, I know how difficult it can be to fill spots that no one really wants or can do especially on a holiday weekend such as Easter. If the truth be told, I likely made around $75 if you count the gasoline it took to drive back and forth to the Austin airport. All that being said, we had a great time, good laughs and made lots of memories and tall tales to tell our friends and family back home, safe and sound :-)
I forgot to mention that my airline ticket maxed out the $350 mileage charge.
here is a video of what the tornado did at the St. Louis airport if anyone is interested: http://www.weather.com/outlook/videos/security-video-of-airport-tornado-20424
Yes, it's true, the $40 daily per diem would barely cover ZOO GIRL'S frozen margarita bill, so she probably lost money on this trip.
Hey if they want to travel - don't knock them... what really needs t happen is good training in those parts of the country - whos in charge of training those guys up there?
Like yesterday's first post, the important factor is everyone is OK and nobody was hurt.
There are no ITA officials in Missouri who were available to work that match? All six were brought from out of state? Kansas being the closest - but Idaho!
I do not know all of the numbers, but who wants to figure how much was spent bringing in 6 out of state officials? Must be mind- boggling!
Where is the training program to fix this problem for the future?
Let me get this straight. A Big 12 women match at Missouri had 6 officials for 4 courts. 1 from Idaho; 1 from Iowa; 1 from Kansas; 3 from Texas.
COST RECAP:
$650. official fee; (1 @ 125 & 5 @ 105).
$240. daily per diem; 6 @ 40.
$1800. travel allowance. (4 @ 350 & 2 at let's say 200).
$300. additional lodging per diem. (let's say 4 @ 75; and 2 drove back home).
TOTAL: $2950.
Oh, by the way Missouri won the match 7-0 over Colorado. Actually, Colorado was 0-11 for the season.
PRICELESS!!!!!!!!!
I love a man that's good at math :-)
You have to have 6 officials regardless of the number of courts because you have to call the far sidelines in doubles . . . . even though this is not done in the NCAA Tournament.
You have to have 6 officials regardless of the number of courts because you have to call the far sidelines in doubles . . . . even though this is not done in the NCAA Tournament.
Calling the far sideline is the coaches way of getting work out of all the officials. Since they are paying big bucks, they want all officials to be working the entire match, thus the reason they are stuck on the far sideline.
It just looks bad to see three officials standing around shooting the bull while the other three are stuck working doubles matches.
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