Weekend event contingencies in place - 13 WTHR Indianapolis

Indianapolis emergency responders and event organizers want to be ready for whatever remnants of Isaac come our way, so there are contingency plans for Labor Day weekend events.
    
At Military Park, one of the weekend's biggest events is taking place - the annual Rib America festival. They are prepared to evacuate if necessary, and that's been done before. Just last year, they were able to evacuate 10,000 people from the festival in just 40 minutes with very little notice.  They hope they'll be uninterrupted this weekend. 

They're hoping for dry conditions out at Lucas Oil Raceway Park, where the U.S. Nationals, the biggest drag race event in the world, is already underway and will continue through the weekend.  But given the anticipated rain, they've condensed the schedule.  Racing stops with even a little bit of rain, and it takes nearly two hours to dry the track out before they can start again.  So they're hoping for the best, but very aware of the probability of a wet weekend ahead.    

"We've adjusted our schedule here and there to try to get as much done today and yesterday to kind of condense the schedule a little bit," said Scott Smith of the National Hot Rod Association. "So what we can get done, we can get done. Started a little bit early this morning, we'll go a little bit later tonight to try to compress as much as we can."

One thing that is giving organizers some hope is that severe weather isn't anticipated until later Saturday into Sunday, so the hope is to get some of these events in before the steady rain arrives.

Rib America starts this morning at 11, so there's hopefully an entire rain-free day today, but they will continue rain or shine. They draw the line at severe weather, especially high winds and lightening.  And they have very detailed severe weather plan. 

In fact, Rib America has a 28-page emergency response manual that covers many scenarios, including severe weather.  Yesterday, crews were busy setting up booths and tents.  This is an all outdoor event, so if weather gets bad, they have to act. 

"Within 40 minutes, we had 10,000 people evacuated to safety venues and their cars," said Rib America's Dave Lucas about last year's evacuation. "And then the storm passed and they were back in, all within 40 minutes."

A couple of other big events this weekend, the Indianapolis Women's half marathon tomorrow morning, which brings about 2300 participants, and the Kiss-Motley Cru concert at Klipsch Music Center are both scheduled rain or shine.