Photo Credit: OSORIOartist for Adobe Stock
Hurricane-turned-Tropical Storm Helene has killed at least 137 people across six states, according to the latest reports, and that toll is likely to rise as hundreds of people remain unaccounted for. Roads are washed out and more than 1.5 million people still have no power in the affected states of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. While the storm's full impact won't be known for some time, local relief efforts are underway.
In the most hard-hit areas, many hotels will be closed indefinitely. Some, like the 47-room boutique luxury Monte Vista Hotel, in Black Mountain, N.C., are using their kitchen facilities to prepare all of the food they can find and giving it to members of the devastated local community. Western North Carolina, including Asheville, was hit particularly hard by the storm.
More than 100 events — 110 and counting — were disrupted by Helene, according to the global event weather-disruption database maintained by Shawna McKinley, prinicpal of Clear Current Consulting, with the greatest volume of reported disruptions coming from Georgia, Florida, Tennessee and North Carolina.
"Special events, arts, culture and entertainment events, and sports events typically experience the highest number of reported weather-related disruptions," noted McKinley, "and that's true of Hurricane Helene as well." Business events take the fourth spot, and thus far account for nine of the disrupted events in the database.
Business events disrupted by Hurricane Helene
- Block Party Career Fair, Asheville, N.C.
- Travel Market Conference, Marco Island, Fla.
- Florida Virtual School Professional Learning Conference, Orlando
- Heart Failure Society of America Annual Scientific Meeting and the HFSA Devices in Heart Failure Meeting, Atlanta
- Special Care Dentistry Association Conference, Orlando
- National Waste & Recycling Association Mid-Atlantic Conference, Hot Springs, Va.
- Augusta Cyber Week activities (multiple classes, conference), Augusta, Ga.
- New Horizons (Household and Commercial Products Association), Asheville, N.C.
- Clubhouse International World Seminar, St. Pete Beach, Fla.
We'll update this list as more business-event cancellations come in. Email us and we'll add to our running list and share with Clear Current for their database.
Preparing for weather resilience
Extreme weather events are of increasing concern to the event professionals, McKinely points out, and the weather-disruption database will provide much needed data to demonstrate the impact and help plan better for the future. Data collection is continuing through October for the latest research cycle and Clear Current will release the findings in 2025. That will expand research that McKinley has previously published about events in Canada.
Clear communication and a backup technology plan are important matters to consider, even for those events that elect to proceed amidst weather disruptions.
The German Studies Association, which held its 48th Annual Conference in Atlanta Sept. 26-29, both welcomed attendees and reassured those who did not travel in a blog post on Sept. 26. "We would like to take this opportunity to reiterate that GSA 2024 will proceed as an in-person conference," the post read. "The decision as to whether or not to travel to Atlanta, given the adverse weather conditions, is one for each individual member. Please be reassured that there is no 'ban' on future conference attendance for those who must withdraw from the conference, so that should not factor into anyone’s decision-making. Your safety is paramount, and no member should undertake travel that they feel would be unsafe."
Responding to queries received about a virtual option, organizers noted the complexities that would have entailed. "The GSA has over two dozen meeting spaces," organizers noted. "Converting an in-person session to a hybrid session requires adding video-broadcasting capability to each affected space. This is more complex than simply hosting an online event, and cannot be done at scale on such short notice."
Should virtual/hybrid capabilities be part of the event-safety discussion, particularly during hurricane season? Depending on the organization and audience, it might already be; or it might become a more important factor as we continue to prepare for these conditions.