DURHAM, N.C. _ Duke basketball officials last week said the university has removed its "crow's nest" seating at Cameron Indoor Stadium due to safety concerns.
The crow's nest, a tight structure "very similar to a catwalk" that hung from the ceiling and was tucked into the rafters at center court above fans at Duke's men's basketball home arena, was accessible only by portable metal ladders that were removed and placed inside the structure once games started.
Positioned about eight feet above the seating area, the three-section structure had three ladders, one for each section, and was used by the university as "specialty seating" for auction winners and to house television and radio broadcasters, along with other reporters and video operators during games. Getting in or out of the crow's nest meant climbing up and down the metal steps, which were angled so users could climb them facing either forward or backward.
Asked last January how people in the crow's nest would exit the structure in the event of an emergency, Duke basketball spokesman Jon Jackson wrote in an email, "the usher and game operations personnel would go to those spaces and assist with portable stairs and direct egress, if necessary."
The broadcasters and others who were seated in the crow's nest were responsible for lowering the ladders themselves or asking for help from Duke staff to make the area accessible, according to Jackson. Each ladder was placed in the booth at game time and lowered again at the game's halftime. The ladders were put back in the booth at the start of the second half, too.
"Because the portable stairs are placed in the booths during game action, they can lower themselves as needed or they can request assistance from game operations personnel," Jackson wrote in an email to The News & Observer in February. "In an emergency scenario, the usher and game operations personnel would go to those spaces and assist with portable stairs and direct egress."
A Duke staff member remained in the area below the crow's nest specifically to aid with the ladders if someone needed to leave the booth. The bottoms of the ladders rested on an aisle, meaning it would have blocked fans sitting below the crows' nest from leaving if the ladders were always left in the down position. That would have violated fire codes.
"Duke must place the portable stairs in the space at the user's control and not block the egress path for the seating area (below)," Jackson wrote in February.
The number of people who used the space during each game varied "based on need, but we do not maximize capacity due to cameras, cases and other personal needs of occupants," Jackson wrote.
Mike Cragg, Duke's deputy athletic director in charge of facilities said Duke's decision to remove the crow's nest, which the university says has been around since at least the 1970s, came from a "self-study" of its game-day procedures. He said the school received guidance from federal safety officials as well as the city of Durham.
Cragg said a review of Cameron as part of the athletic facilities upgrades going on at Duke led the school to make changes this summer.
"It was not an ideal setting by any stretch," Cragg said of the crow's nest. "We are doing so much stuff it was a good time to address it."
