While September is a time when meeting organizers simply must have contingency plans if they use destinations in the Caribbean and Florida, this year’s Hurricane Helene has brought some unusual destinations into play for meeting alterations and cancellations.
First, Hurricane Helene struck hard in Cancun earlier this week as it made its way towards the Florida Panhandle, bringing heavy rain, wind, and storm surge to Tampa by the afternoon of September 26. Tampa International Airport was shut down by 2 a.m. on September 26 until the storm passed. Fortunately, no corporate or association events were scheduled at the Tampa Convention Center; at press time it could not be ascertained whether any meetings were taking place at the city's major business hotels.
However, with Atlanta set to get about ten inches of rain and sustained 60-mile-per-hour winds starting on the evening of September 26, the Heart Failure Society of America canceled its four-day, 3,000-attendee annual scientific meeting just 36 hours before it was to begin on September 27 at the Georgia World Congress Center.
At 9 p.m. on September 25, the association posted this message on its website:
The HFSA Board of Directors held an emergency meeting to discuss Hurricane Helene’s impact on the Atlanta region. After much discussion, the Board made the difficult decision to cancel the HFSA Annual Scientific Meeting and the HFSA Devices in Heart Failure Meeting, in light of the declaration of a State of Emergency by the Georgia governor.
The safety of our attendees, staff, exhibitors—as well as the employees who staff the hotel and Georgia World Congress Center—is our top priority, and we believe this is the most responsible course of action.
We kindly ask for your patience as we navigate this unexpected situation. We understand the inconvenience this will cause and will keep you updated on our progress as soon as we have more concrete information to share about the consequences of our decision.
With the governors of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia each having declared a state of emergency, the force majeure clause in contracts for meetings set to take place over the next several days in those states might well come into play.
Meanwhile, Nashville is also in the projected path of the storm, with seven to ten inches of rain forecasted to fall from late on September 26 until September 29. One event that might have narrowly escaped disruption is the 3,000-attendee Association of Energy Engineers’ World Energy Conference & Expo at the Music City Convention Center. As of the afternoon of September 26, the conference’s final session was set to conclude at noon on September 27 as originally scheduled, though expected flight delays and cancellations at Nashville International Airport on that day could prompt a change in the plan.
One sizable corporate meeting that began in Nashville on the afternoon of September 26 was PwC’s 400-attendee Fall Partner Experience at the Four Seasons Nashville. At press time, the event was still scheduled to run through September 29, but a September 26 reception on the hotel's rooftop was moved indoors, while a September 28 party scheduled for Bicentennial Park is also being moved.
For those event groups scheduled for Atlanta, Nashville and other regional destinations in the days after the storm passes, power outages might be a complicating factor.
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