Behind the Scenes

Some fun facts about the Super Bowl

• Estimated economic impact for Minneapolis - $400 million
• Cost of city services to support the Super Bowl - $5 million  (hmmm - seems low)
• Number of hotel rooms in downtown Minneapolis - 8,600
• Number of hotel rooms available in Minneapolis over the weekend - very few
• Number of hotel rooms booked in the Twin Cities area during the Super Bowl week - 41,000
• Number of metro-area hotel rooms required by the NFL - 19,000
• Out of town visitors over the weekend - 125,000
• Average price of a Super Bowl ticket on the resale market - $5,700
• Number of journalists expected to cover Super Bowl 52 - 5,000
• Average daily spend of a visitor to the Super Bowl - $652
• Number of police departments contributing officers to Super Bowl security - 60
• Number of federal agencies on site to assure security - 40
• Members of the Minnesota Nation Guard committed to security for the Super Bowl - 400

Impressive numbers by any measure. But even more impressive is the planning and infrastructure that supports one of these colossal events. My opportunity to explore some of that planning and infrastructure came compliments of the Red Cross. About six months before the event, a colleague charged with pulling together a External Relations team for staffing of the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) in Minneapolis asked if I'd assist. She mentioned it would require some general training in government operations and acronyms (of which there are hundreds), and that the role would be Red Cross liaison to the EOC. In theory, if any agency within the EOC needs Red Cross assistance for any incident, or if the Red Cross needs to inform the EOC of activity that might deplete Red Cross resources, the liaison catches the ball to coordinate and inform either side of that equation. It sounded interesting, an experience I'd never had before, and would expand my understanding of the Red Cross. Maybe even expose me to what happens behind the scenes in a major security event.

The planning team from the Red Cross, involving around 100 volunteers and staff, had been working on the Incident Action Plan for over a year. They were included on the greater city planning committee, which started working on it over two years ago. 

We finally got around to training in mid-January, delayed significantly by all the hurricane events in the latter part of 2017. Ten of us were to split the two-a-day shift calendar for the ten day period. Planning was still fluid, with adaptations from the city continuous, which would prove to be the case right up to SB52 weekend.

The EOC was basically two rooms. The main room had four person tables with different city and military personnel from different departments within the city - police, fire, health services -  Coast Guard, National Guard, and U.S. Marshall. Another room, tied into the main room with monitors, had tables of Federal agencies, corporate communication and utility companies and non-profit ESF-6 disaster response organizations. ESF-6 is a category within the Federal National Response Framework (NSF) that aligns with the National Incident Management System (NIM), both of which are part of the National Preparedness System (NPS) under the Presidential Policy Directive (PPD-8). Yeah, it gets complicated. And calls for an acronym glossary. ESF-6 specifically refers to Mass Care, Emergency Assistance, Housing, and Human Services, for which American Red Cross is a primary partner with FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency).

Minneapolis Emergency Operations Training Facility

My station was the first chair in the front one of two rows. It had a Red Cross personal computer locked to the desk (inside a Minneapolis Fire and Police training center with 24 hour security you need to lock a five year old PC?) and a three ring binder with forms and the Daily Log. The assignment responsibilities included logging in, entering the Homeland Security Information System and registering a "green" status on the status board and entering the name and phone number of the liaison on duty. Then I was to email the leadership team that I had arrived and share any developments since the last shift. Half way through the shift we were to file SitRep (does it really take much longer to say Situation Report?) with the EOC Liaison Officer. At the end of the shift, brief your replacement, fill out the log, and that's it. Other than being available should some kind of very unlikely disaster incident pop up. Pretty boring, in other words. Those around me were a bit more active, since many of them were related to the communications industry. Cell phone providers collaborated with Homeland Security to assure service, and as you can imagine they had a few issues (ever had trouble connecting with your cell phone), only these issues were not with a phone, but rather with a whole service area. On one occasion, all the CCTV camera's in St. Paul went down during the media session at the Xcell Energy Center, and on another calls to the Multi Agency Command Center (MACC) resulted in a "circuits busy" message. Not good for a center that controls all law enforcement resources to become unaccessible by phone.

The fun of it was learning how others did their jobs, and how many groups and individuals were involved just in coordinating resources in support of this super event. It works pretty well to have them all in one room so they quickly and directly communicate with each other to respond to incidents. It's harder to duck someone who is standing in front of you with a question or a request.

They say each year they get better and better at managing these situations. Evidence of that was in the fact that I read little or nothing about the situations that were addressed because they were handled quickly, efficiently, and quietly. Things like the daily protests by various organizations at various locations. One I observed on the monitors in the front of the room occurred in St. Paul with 250 protestors working to drop a large banner over the Xcel Energy Center. Never saw it on the news, folks at the event never really noticed it, and we never read about it in the paper.

Another aspect I appreciated was the attitude of folks related to enforcement. There certainly was plenty of well organized control of the crowds and protection of property, but without any of the imposing or heavy handed or obvious behavior characteristics you sometimes feel as a spectator or participant. A priority in addition to the mission of safety was the overarching interest in making everything associated with the Super Bowl a positive and entertaining experience. Even when crowds grew beyond expectations or capacities, as they did in the Nicolett Mall area during evening concerts and activities, and entrances were sealed and spectators denied, they were provided acceptable options that allowed them to enjoy most of the experience from huge monitors positioned away from the activity. Officials and law enforcement seemed to be as gracious as possible, apparent by the lack of irritation on the part of participants.

The Department of Homeland Security, in particular, seems to be fulfilling the objectives of better communication and collaboration between agencies envisioned at the time of its creation. It was impressive to see how everyone operated from standardized playbooks, and had common interests and goals. It gave me great hope in the ability of government to meet the ever growing expectations of an ever critical citizenry. They're focused on learning while executing, without arrogance. A very positive, if not a bit (thankfully) boring experience for me. Of course there's a bit of a flip side. Looking at all the resources I had at my disposal for observing activities and surveilling the greater metro area, as a non-law enforcement non-profit agency, I could only imagine the resources available to law enforcement. With hundreds of camera's positioned at all the major intersections and venues, and black hawk helicopters hovering overhead, and drones quietly passing over, not much could be missed. A fight off to the side of a venue between two individuals was there for all to observe, including the part where the officers approached and the participants scattered, squelching any further issue. Face recognition, zoom resolution, cell phone pinging, I could imagine they could identify and qualify threats pretty thoroughly. A good thing, but sure to rattle a privacy advocate. In any case, I sure felt more secure, more confident, and just a bit proud of how far our enforcement community has come in competence and level headedness.




PostScript

Several months ago the call went out for volunteers for the Super Bowl. The requirements were measured in the thousands. That didn't even sound the least bit interesting or attractive.  Not to mention the interesting premise of using volunteers for what is basically a for profit, commercial operation. In this case it's not enough to contribute hundreds of millions in public funds toward a billion dollar stadium for the exclusive interest of a sports franchise? Don't you wonder how likely it would be that a city or state would offer a public auditorium or civic center for the exclusive use of Charles Schwab?

The arguments all revolve around economic benefit, and specifically the attraction of employees from other parts of the country less likely to appreciate sub-zero climates with white stuff all around. The economic benefit of a Super Bowl is more short term in nature, with hundreds of millions of business expected to be fostered by a game pitting two teams in a championship match lasting about four hours. Of course there's also lots of hype and activities surrounding that four hours. Ten days to two weeks worth, depending on how you measure it. In fact, checking the hotel listings for the weekend would suggest at least the hospitality industry benefits. If you can find a vacancy at all, it will run you a minimum of $400 with no bounds up from there. Communications from the Red Cross those many months ago referred to the challenges of providing shelter for anyone displaced by a house or apartment fire. In fact, their own call went out for volunteers to help with the planning and execution of an action plan for the period, given the unique circumstances of the environment of a Super Bowl, especially if an unforeseen, large scale incident were to erupt.

The more than one hundred Red Cross volunteers mobilized to respond to any conceivable incident were just the very tip of the iceberg. Thousands of public and private paid and volunteer individuals were required to service the considerable crowds in favor of the experience of the Super Bowl. We certainly hope it's an economic benefit for the future of the Twin Cities economy.