Meeting News - February 11, 2008 - (Page 40)

Cover Story meeting room—which stopped the meeting cold. A hotel staffer came into the room right then and said, ‘OK, you need to evacuate. Follow me.’ Only then did the alarm go off again.” According to Gothan, the attendees were escorted for a few minutes to a back entrance of the hotel in order to avoid the main entrance, where chunks of melted and burning foam were falling to the ground. Once outside, the group saw that firefighters were already working on the fire. Gothan said, “My people feel they were not told to leave quickly enough,” though she acknowledged that her group was meeting on a low floor and that other areas of the property were in more immediate danger. But Gothan said the contingency measures taken by MGM Mirage to direct evacuated Monte Carlo guests were excellent.“They made announcements, via bullhorn, in the Monte Carlo parking lot saying that guests should walk to the MGM Grand Garden Arena for more instructions,” she said. “There was food and drink at the arena, and lots of staff helped out.” Many Monte Carlo guests were booked into the MGM Grand and New York - New York resorts, while Gothan’s attendees went to the Bellagio. Most Monte Carlo guests were able to go back into the resort on Jan. 26 to collect their belongings. Gothan’s attendees left behind not only their session materials but also some of their luggage. Gothan noted, “Our VP had to jump through hoops to get clearance to go back into the meeting area. But once he got to the room, he was told that another person had already gone in and taken everything. We didn’t find out for several hours that it was one of our own people.” One thing Gothan learned from the experience was this: “We need to have everyone’s cell phone numbers on a master list before the meeting begins, and plan out a phone chain. It took us an hour after the evacuation to account for everyone, which made us pretty anxious.” The Jan. 25th Monte Carlo fire has knocked the property out of commission for the time being. Monte Carlo fire continued from cover MGM Mirage spokesman, said Monte Carlo employees went door to door evacuating guests. One guest who was in a 30th-floor guest room told a Las Vegas newspaper he heard housekeepers banging on doors and yelling,“Fire, get out!” But Michelle Gothan, who planned a 40-person meeting at the resort for Early Warning, a Scottsdale-based fraud-management firm, felt there was too much delay in notifying and evacuating her group from the hotel’s meeting space. Gothan, the firm’s senior marketing coordinator who was not on site, gave the account relayed to her by attendees: “The alarm went off briefly, then shut off, and then an announcement said,‘We are investigating the cause of the alarm. We will give you more information as soon as we get it.’ Nobody in the meeting room was worried and went back to the agenda. About 10 minutes later, they heard a woman shriek, ‘Oh my God!’ right outside their Small Fire at Foxwoods Closes Three Hotel Floors F our days after the fire at Las Vegas’ Monte Carlo Resort & Casino, a roof fire broke out at the 300-room Great Cedar Hotel at Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket, CT, marking a harrowing week for casino properties. Both the hotel and the adjacent casino were evacuated and no one was injured. Fire officials said the incident was caused by a malfunction in an electrical device used to keep pipes from freezing. The fire was limited mostly to the hotel’s exterior, but the hotel suffered water damage to its sixth, seventh, and eighth floors, said Foxwoods spokesman Saverio Mancini. Those floors were still closed at press time, but the fourth and fifth floors reopened on Jan. 31. Guests were moved to other hotels on the Mashantucket Pequot reservation or to a hotel in nearby North Stonington. —RC CIC Appoints Interim President Industry veteran Colin Rorrie to head organization until summer Washington, DC—The Convention Industry Council has named Colin Rorrie as interim president and CEO, following the unexpected departure of Mary Power in May 2007 after a seven-year tenure as the organization’s president. Rorrie was president and CEO of Meeting Professionals International until his March 2006 departure. He also has held positions on the boards for ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership, among other posts. He is expected to be CIC’s chief for about four to six months, before returning to his association consulting practice. A search for a permanent leader is in the works. “As we continue to search for a new executive, we recColin Rorrie ognized the necessity of having an industry professional oversee our organization,” said Brenda Anderson, chair of the CIC’s board of directors and CEO of the Society of Incentive & Travel Executives (SITE). CIC is an umbrella of 31 industry organizations. r —Emily Carrus www.meetingnews.com 40 MeetingNews February 11, 2008 Photo: Associated Press/Jae C. Hong http://www.meetingnews.com

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Meeting News - February 11, 2008

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