The Federal Emergency Management Agency has just scored with the National Football League.
On Tuesday, FEMA solidified a new partnership with the NFL that will designate a number of football stadiums as shelters for future emergencies.
The partnership results from three years of planning, after the NFL first approached FEMA with the idea in 2021. Seeing New York City use stadiums as temporary hospitals and vaccination sites during COVID-19, they realized the venues could do even more good.
The initiative also takes inspiration from disaster response (or lack thereof) during Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana in 2005, as an estimated 25,000 people created a makeshift shelter in the Superdome in New Orleans.
Unfortunately, without advance planning, those seeking refuge in the Superdome found themselves short of food, water, and other supplies.
“The biggest difference between this and Hurricane Katrina is we’re doing this in advance,” FEMA administrator Deanna Criswell told The Washington Post.
“We will know what the capabilities of each specific stadium are, and we will work with them on the threats in the cities that they’re in.”
By preparing ahead of time, FEMA experts hope that this NFL partnership can offer a safe haven in climate or health emergencies.
The chief security officer for the NFL, Cathy L. Lanier called the partnership “an obvious fit,” following a formal agreement between the two organizations on Tuesday at the NFL headquarters.
“Stadiums are valuable community assets that are often used in times of disasters,” Lanier said in a statement. “This designation reflects the role that many stadiums play, not only on Sundays, but especially in times of need.”
According to The Washington Post’s reporting, the stadiums would be available all year long, with operation costs of temporary shelters negotiated among local, state, and federal government officials in the event of a federally declared disaster.
FEMA director of public affairs Jaclyn Rothenberg also added that the venues could be used for “staging generators or for command-and-control centers.”
To start, there are four venues that have signed on to the partnership. They include:
- MetLife Stadium, home of the Jets and the Giants in East Rutherford, New Jersey
- Lumen Field, home of the Seahawks in Seattle, Washington
- Acrisure Stadium, home of the Steelers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Raymond James Stadium, home of the Buccaneers in Tampa, Florida
SoFi Stadium — home of the Rams and the Chargers — in Los Angeles, California is also expected to join the initiative in the near future.
To receive an official “Mission Ready Venue” designation from FEMA, the venues have to undergo a comprehensive safety assessment to see what capabilities the space has to support emergency and disaster response efforts.
Venues will be measured by their ability to provide safety and security, accessibility, and reliable social resilience in times of crisis.
With climate change continuing to rear its head through intensified disasters like hurricanes, wildfires, and floods, large-scale solutions like these could be instrumental in saving lives.
Even with designations and funding, emergency management in these spaces will require ongoing coordination to safely house thousands — sometimes for weeks.
“If you just line up cots along the football field and you have thousands of people, that’s okay for a couple of days,” Make Sage, an emergency preparedness expert at the Public Health Institute told The Washington Post.
He argued that providing privacy for people could be hard, suggesting individual tents as a way to get the most out of the space.
“If it will be long term, you need to make it more comfortable,” he said.
Sage also added that testing these stadiums’ capacity to operate during these disasters is also vital, ensuring they are prepared to “provide electricity when all the electricity is down.”
While details and planning continue, FEMA officials are eager to see this partnership come to fruition, adding that other sports organizations and leagues are encouraged to follow in the footsteps of the NFL.
“It just made perfect sense,” Criswell told The Washington Post. “We have all of these existing venues. How do we better coordinate during these blue sky days to better understand what they bring to the table and what we can use them for in the future?”
Header image courtesy of Anthony Quintano (CC BY 2.0)
