KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Chiefs are watching the weather along with the rest of the Kansas City area as a winter storm moves through.
Much like coach Andy Reid and his staff have a plan in place to handle the Houston Texans in the AFC Divisional Round at 2:05 p.m. on Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium, team officials have a game plan to get the stadium ready for the teams and fans.
"First priority, the field, making sure we do everything right there," Chiefs President Mark Donovan said. "We've got a really good plan there. The heated field, the investment we made there a few years ago now, is coming to pay some dividends."
Ahead of the storm, the field temperature was about 75 degrees.
"If it goes the way the forecast says, we'll probably uncover it on Saturday night and let it breathe a little bit then be ready to go on Sunday," Donovan said. "If there's any chance of any snow on Saturday night, we'll keep it covered until the morning of the game."
Arrowhead Stadium will likely lose roughly 100 parking spots due snow as crews clear parking lots for tailgaters.
The roads around the stadium will be treated by Missouri Department of Transportation crews, some of whom met with team officials Friday.
“The ideal situation would be for people to stay home, because with the weather coming in it’s going to be tough to manage,” MoDOT Senior Communications Specialist Markl Johnson said. “It’s easier for us to clear the roads when there’s less vehicles on the road. But obviously, that can’t happen. With the folks headed to the stadium, we just want them to be cautious, take their time and plan ahead.”
THhe Chiefs are confident in the MoDOT game plan as well.
"They have been amazing partners of ours all season long, especially with the big construction project that's going on," Donovan said. "They are in contact continuously with us about the weather and what their plans are and how they're going to help us."
Fans can help out, too.
"With the folks headed to the stadium, we just want them to be cautious, take their time and plan ahead," Johnson said.
Crews will clear the snow from the seats for fans, using big tubes to send the snow from the upper and lower level, down to the field.
Donovan said there's just one more piece of the Chiefs winter weather plan: "We activate a super secret, special snow team, which is a bunch of our full-time employees. Our CFO, our controller, a lot of our sales staff, a lot of our operations staff, people who will be working all day Sunday during the game will be out here tomorrow afternoon. They'll put their best winter clothes on and they'll be out shoveling snow with us."
Chiefs personnel are on standby, ready to go to Arrowhead Stadium on Saturday afternoon and work through the night, if needed, to be ready for the big game on Sunday.
