BLACKSBURG — Virginia Tech football fans Richard Hardy and Laura Smith got so soaked at Lane Stadium on Saturday that at one point in the game’s weather delay, they headed to a shopping mall in Christiansburg.
They wanted to buy new shoes and socks.
Saturday’s Purdue-Virginia Tech clash featured a delay of more than five hours. There was a driving rain for about the first three hours of the delay, so fans took shelter in the stadium concourses or in nearby athletic facilities.
“[I got] drenched,” Smith, who lives in Roanoke, said as she and Hardy walked toward Lane at about 5:30 p.m. to re-enter the stadium. “I’m still fairly wet.”
The game was suspended at 12:48 p.m. — late in the first quarter — because of lightning. Fans were ordered to leave the stands. It did not stop raining until about 4 p.m.
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Hardy and Smith, who are cousins, waited in a stadium concourse for about the first hour of the storm until they decided to walk back to their truck. They drove to Christiansburg for new shoes and socks.
“We wanted to come back and see the game and be comfortable,” said Hardy, who also lives in Roanoke.
Hardy said fans in the concourse were calm until Tech stopped selling concessions in the concourse.
“Then people got a little unruly,” he said.
According to the university, Tech stops selling concessions when there is a weather delay because of how crowded it gets in the concourses. Concession sales resumed later Saturday afternoon, once the concourses became less crowded.
Tech announced at 4:19 p.m. that the game would resume at 6:15 p.m., with the gates reopening at 5:15 p.m.
Many fans stuck around to see the game resume.
“Because we love Virginia Tech,” Hardy said.
Kendall Strickland of Fairlawn said she got soaked as she and Andrew Evans left the stands to wait in the concourse during the delay.
“Even in the concourse, we were getting wet because the rain was blowing into the concourse,” said Evans, who also lives in Fairlawn. “It was crazy. There was water standing in so many different places.”
Strickland was not happy that concessions were not sold while they waited in the concourse.
“Who doesn’t sell concessions when everyone’s stuck at the concessions stand?” Strickland said. “Everyone was pissed. It’s the dumbest thing ever.”
Strickland and Evans left Lane at 4 p.m. to drive to Sharkey’s in Blacksburg for a bite to eat. After hitting the campus bookstore to buy a rain jacket for Evans and to buy a blanket, they returned to Lane.
Donald Hungate of Pearisburg waited in a concourse for the first 45 minutes of the delay, but the concourse got too crowded for him and he got tired of standing. So he headed over to Cassell Coliseum. He got plenty wet walking from Lane to Cassell.
“A rainproof jacket ain’t what it used to be,” Hungate said. “That was hard rain.”
Hungate was glad Cassell was open. He had no desire to go home.
“If they had the game tonight at 9 o’clock, I’d still be here because I love Tech football,” he said. “This is my favorite thing.”
Hungate was at Lane for the 2000 BCA Bowl against Georgia Tech. That game was halted just before kickoff because of lightning and heavy rain and was eventually called off. He also was at Lane for the 2003 game against Texas A&M; that game was played during heavy rain from Hurricane Isobel.
“This was wetter [than those games],” he said. “I’ve never seen it blow that hard in this stadium … This is the worst game by far.”
Bryan and Erika Henry of Blacksburg said their ponchos did not do a good job of keeping them dry as they walked from Lane to Cassell Coliseum.
After waiting inside Cassell for awhile, they drove to Buffalo Wild Wings to eat. They returned to Lane, but not before Erika retrieved a “sturdy garbage bag” from their car in case the rain resumed.
They did not want to skip the resumption of the game.
“Nothing better than a night game,” she said.
Darrell and Debbie Blankenship of Abingdon got plenty wet Saturday as they left the stands for the delay.
“It was quite a deluge,” Darrell Blankenship said. “It took awhile to get out of the stands because of the backup going down the ramps. Otherwise, the Tech staff did as good a job as possible.”
“We got a good soaking,” Debbie Blankenship said.
The Blankenships couldn’t get some of their rain gear on in time.
“We weren’t quite expecting the extreme downpour,” Darrell Blankenship said.
The Blankenships waited in one of the concourses until it stopped raining. Only then were they willing to walk over to the Beamer-Lawson Practice Facility to wait inside for the gates to reopen.
They were not interested in heading home once the game was suspended.
“We never leave a game early,” Darrell Blankenship said. “We’re going to try to stick it out, even though it’s quite a drive [home] for us.”
