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Home Page   Local News   Local Sports   Community Calendar   Opinion   Editorials   Columns   Letters to the Editor   Archives   News Archives   Sports Archives	6-26-2007 Rain, rain stay away Staff Report For those wondering what would happen in the event of severe weather during Sunday's Induction Ceremony, Hall of Fame spokesman Jeff Idelson said it's all or nothing. "It's either going to be outside or cancelled," he said. "There are no rain plans." Idelson said the Hall would pursue every possible avenue to have the ceremony outside, however. "We don't want to cancel the event," Idelson added. "But if we have 50,000 people sitting in a field we don't want to put them in harm's way either. If it's not dangerous, and just raining, the ceremony would likely continue." Idelson said Hall of Fame officials talk regularly with Otsego County officials all day Sunday to keep abreast of potential weather problems. "The decision to cancel would ultimately be the county's," Idelson said. Otsego County Emergency Services Coordinator Butch Jones said they haven't had to cancel an Induction before, but were on the brink of doing so several years ago. "We look for indications of severe weather," Jones said. He explained that they have NOAA weather radios on site and ask the National Weather Service at the Broome County Airport in Binghamton to "keep a special eye out for us." They also make use of local radar at Doubleday Field and the county highway garage. If the decision was made to cancel the event based on a morning forecast, they would have a number of hours of warning, but there is no immediate shelter which could be used. Jones said they are worried about storms accompanied by high winds, lightning or tornados, but some rain and simply getting wet is up to the visitors to decide.
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