ATIA organizers provided umbrellas to protect members from the rain. They were also ready to provide portable toilets and bottled water if city water ran out. (RichMcClear, KCAW News)
What happens when you have 400 guests in town at the biggest convention Sitka has ever seen and the main water line breaks with the potential of no water by morning?
That problem faced the organizers of the Alaska Travel Industry Association convention this week.
“Oh my goodness! What about using the bathrooms?” wondered Laurie Booysa, director of advertising and sales for ATIA.
“It was about 11 o’clock last night and we had people trying to source a backup plan. We were trying to source porta potties,” she said. “But we’re Alaskans, right? We all know how to tough it out and I think we would have been good.”
Boysa, Roger Schmidt of the Sitka Fine Arts Camp and Tonya Rouix of the Sitka Convention and Visitor’s Bureau set a plan in motion.
It not only included porta potties, but flying in water on Alaska Airlines and one other thing, according to Tonya Roiux from the Sitka Convention and Visitor’s Bureau.
“A lot of good wishes, prayers and hopes that everything could be resolved.”
And perhaps that’s all they needed.
