SEC Media Staff Learns Important Disaster Recovery Lessons From Atlanta Tornado

The tornado that shocked Atlanta last Friday night had the Southeastern Conference scrambling to find a way to recover and complete their 2008 Men's Basketball Tournament. But the pulled it off. The following is an excerpt of an Interview I did with SEC Media Relations Director DeWayne Peevy, and is available in full over on Eye on Sports Media:

"If I had one lesson to take from this," says Southeastern Conference Men's Basketball Media Relations Director DeWayne Peevy, "is to never underestimate who will step up with ability to help when facing trying circumstances." Peevy, of course, is referring to the decisions that had to be made, and the implementation of these decisions after a category F-2 tornado hit the heart of Atlanta last Friday night. Alabama and Mississippi State were in the midst of an overtime period in their quarterfinal match-up when, with 2:11 left on the clock, the sound of a train running through the area was heard. To many people who have experienced it in the past, they knew it was the sound of a tornado. Everything on the court stopped and people started looking up, not realizing at the time that a major change was coming to the 2008 Southeastern Conference Men's Basketball Tournament....

...And the end result? Peevy says that "A very small minority in the media voiced complaints, and that is probably because they did not just understand the magnitude of what had to be done.The remaining part of the tournament was actually one of the smoothest we have ever had." This could be because the tornado slapped the Southeastern Conference and media out of their complacency that can breed from doing things a certain way, year after year. One thing is for certain, everybody in the Georgia Dome Friday night is very lucky that the tornado did not make a direct hit. It is also probable that the SEC will start drawing up contingency and disaster recover plans for their sponsored tournaments and championships.