Posted: December 13, 2010
By PATRICK DONNELLY
FOXSportsNorth.com
Millions of people have watched the FOX Sports exclusive footage of the Metrodome collapsing early Sunday morning. Most of those viewers have no idea how fortunate they were to get that chance.
Usually, high definition TV cameras aren't left rolling overnight to shoot an empty stadium, but thanks to the planning of several FOX NFL crew members, the historic collapse was captured in amazing HD footage that first aired on the FOX NFL Sunday pregame show.
Twin Cities resident Randy Carr is a veteran of many Metrodome telecast productions. As a tape operator, he's responsible for preparing instant replays during game broadcasts, but his quick thinking made the historic footage possible.
"On the setup day, Saturday, I was inside the dome, and went down to visit with one of my old friends in operations," Carr said. "He seemed concerned that the roof was looking sort of concave, like an upside-down umbrella under all that snow, because it was snowing so fast.
"They had the heat and air pressure turned up, and they'd sent half a dozen guys up on roof with fire hoses spraying hot water to melt the snow, but they couldn't keep up."
Carr knew this was unusual, so he returned to the FOX operations truck and told technical director Colby Bourgeois about what he'd seen and heard. And Richie Zyontz, FOX lead NFL game producer, said the conditions inside the dome also tipped off the crew to the unique circumstances at play.
"In the afternoon, it was just leaking into the stands," Zyontz said. "Once we knew that this was not an everyday leak in the roof, we decided to (record it).
