skibum,

We had a similar situation up here in NC a few weekends ago when Hurricane Charley remnants were coming our way. Heavy rain and high wind conditions were forecast for Saturday, 8/14. Our bike club's annual century (1000 riders) was scheduled rain or shine that very day.

I found out from the folks in the club that organized the event that the ride simply can't be postponed due to rentals (port-a-johns, tents, tables), city permits (to use various parking lots that day for setup and parking), volunteer commitments, and the tons of food that has already been purchased and/or homemade. So, it's rain or shine....but, they do take public safety into account.

What they ended doing was canceling the 100 and 62-mile loops and only allowing those 50 or so intrepid riders who showed up in torrential rain to do the 20- or 31-mile loops. This way they could clean up and send the riders and volunteers home safely by noon, while still fulfilling their obligation to hold the ride. (As it turned out, we didn't get hit nearly as hard as the weather folks forecast - after hard rain in the morning, it eased off by noon, and we never even got wind!)

I'm going tonight to meet with a group of club volunteers to mail out event t-shirts and bandanas to the many riders who didn't show up. It's tough for participants when things like this happen, but even tougher on volunteers who have worked for months to plan and stage an event only to have it be severely affected by storms. I give a lot of credit to those volunteers who showed up in the rain to support the riders that morning. I hear there was a 1:1 ratio of volunteers to riders!

Emily