The idea of creating a combined baseball stadium-storm shelter has surfaced lately. The thought comes from Weston politicians and of course they suggest the facility be built near their city.

 

I suggest this:

 

Modify the plans of the stadium planned for the Orange Bowl site to withstand a category 5 storm. This could be done by fortifying the corridors and other ?inside spaces? that could serve as a shelter for evacuees during the height of the storm, which would be for 6-8 hours at the most. Extra bathrooms would be required as well as kitchens, storage areas, and whatever else that is needed would have to be provided to make the facility a true state-of-the-art storm shelter for the community.

 

When the storm passes the rest of the stadium, that is to say, the seating and playing field areas with the retractable roof closed of course, could serve as additional temporary housing until the evacuees can go back home or the county and state can house and feed them elsewhere.

 

In this manner most of the present design of the stadium can remain unchanged and the cost would not increase dramatically. It is logical to expect that the architects had to conform to South Florida?s building code and the structure as proposed now is storm worthy. The only changes that would be required are those that would provide all the amenities needed to safely house a large number of evacuees for a few days.

 

Why keep the Orange Bowl location?

 

1. The funding is almost complete except for the gap of approximately $100 million. It only needs the county and/or state to fill the shortfall. If the entire process is again started from scratch it could take a very long time to complete, and it?s future may be in jeopardy. If built outside the city limits the money and land promised by the city of Miami would not be included in the new deal. No other locality has offered any financial assistance to the project.

 

2. We usually are informed 3 to 4 days in advance of an approaching storm. Once the evacuation order is given there is plenty of time to safely provide transportation for evacuees from Monroe, Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties to the Orange Bowl area if the storm were heading in their direction. In the case of Broward and Palm Beach county residents, the fact that they would need to travel a few more miles south of the Miami-Dade--Broward county line does not seem that much of a problem in my mind. I can understand that the extra distance could be considered as an inconvenience to attend a ball game, but when it comes to a hurricane evacuation to a safe and modern facility, an extra 30 minutes of travel time should not matter.

 

3. Much time and effort has been poured into the negotiations of a new Marlins stadium. Just about all hurdles have been cleared except for the $100 million gap. Modifying the plan to accept the concept of a storm shelter seems like a good idea. But the key word here is MODIFYING, not starting over.

Weston politicians say to build it near Dolphins Stadium. READ PEOPLE READ!

I'm for this idea, but I spent some time trying to think of why it might not work. Devils advocate input:

 

1- Any shelter site would have to be built with internal, sustainable power generators. That's expensive to cool a baseball stadium.

 

2- I expect the land requirements will increase about 50%, to accomodate a shelter and the accompanying government requirements. OB site cannot accommodate.

 

3- The Marlins want to control the revenue and booking for non-baseball events. Getting the gov't involved will interfer.

 

Discuss.

I'm for this idea, but I spent some time trying to think of why it might not work. Devils advocate input:

 

1- Any shelter site would have to be built with internal, sustainable power generators. That's expensive to cool a baseball stadium.

 

2- I expect the land requirements will increase about 50%, to accomodate a shelter and the accompanying government requirements. OB site cannot accommodate.

 

3- The Marlins want to control the revenue and booking for non-baseball events. Getting the gov't involved will interfer.

 

Discuss.

 

 

 

upon those thoughts, here are my own

 

1. Use a seperate system paid for via the government for shelter use. Then the standard one for the regular use of the marlins wish to have. It would be cheaper in the long run that way.

 

2. Land requirements increase no matter what for projects compared to the beginning unless it is right near to Joe Robbie. Which has the land and wayne would love the parking garrage.

 

3. They can control that, just priority would come durring times of hurricanes from events to the shelter use. This isnt a big deal as who would have events going on durring a hurricane anyways?

I had a somewhat different take on how to accomplish a sports/emergency shelter faclity.

 

In a scenario I could envision the sports facility would be encircled with a multi-level 20,000 car parking garage which would serve as the evacuation/staging area in case of emergency for both evacuees and respoder personnel and the field area and stands would serve secondary purposes, as anything contructed with a retractable roof (regardless of promises of standing up to category 5 hurricanes) is an accident waiting to happen.