Sandy came. Sandy went. It was one storm with two tales. On the North, rain fell in sheets. On the South, especially in the mountains, the snow was measured in feet. Normally, the fact that resorts in West Virginia and North Carolina were getting buried in snow would give a PR crew massive bragging rights.

Yet, early on Tuesday I saw the death count had risen to 50. Thousands of homes were significantly damaged and millions were without power.

Two Sides
On the one hand, locals were champing at the bit with freshly waxed skis and boards in hand, beating down the door of local hills with queries about possible early openings. On the other, just a couple hundred miles away, the rest of the resort’s target market was hoping that when they returned home their cars would still work, facing a long fall of insurance claims and, possibly, funerals.

So, what do you do?

Sugar Mountain in North Carolina had been buzzing a Halloween opening before the storm ever hit. Should they have kept their foot on the buzz pedal, or let off and remembered that not everyone was so fortunate?

What I’d Do
Alex Kaufman pointed out to me that Snowshoe, despite doing some very successful PR work that landed them national coverage of their 17″+ snowfall, had hundreds of social media users asking, with no response, if they’d be opening.

In fact, not a single tweet was sent from their profile for more than 4 days.

If I were them, this is what I would have said:

“We’re excited as you are about skiing, but this is a time to focus on making sure everyone is safe before we think of turning on any lifts.”

I think there’s a time to get excited about snow, but I don’t the day after this storm was one of those. Make sure everyone is okay (maybe an early opening with proceeds to storm relief would be a good balance), and then think about skiing.

So, that’s what I’d do.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.