RootsTech is one of those events that speakers, vendors, RootsTech staff, and volunteers prepare for in an ever-increasing whirlwind for the 6 months before RootsTech actually takes place. I’m sure that the RootsTech staff starts next week for next year. At least, I sure hope they get a week or two of rest.
I can’t see behind the scenes of course, but I know that speakers begin submissions in about June and by the late fall, webinars have been recorded, syllabus documents are complete, and Powerpoint slides are well underway.
Vendors have been preparing for months too – planning their booths, videos and feature announcements.
RootsTech is the largest and most far-reaching genealogy conference in the world, offering hundreds of classes in a variety of formats. It’s one huge family reunion.
2024 was the best RootsTech ever. I think the years we missed in-person events due to Covid have made attendees incredibly grateful to see one another.
I know that not everyone can make the journey to Salt Lake City, so I’m going to take you along with me.
Including the misadventures😊
Sunday
The FamilySearch Library (FSL) is open Monday through Saturday with extended hours during RootsTech week. Many genealogists extend their RootsTech trip and visit the library! It’s like old-home week, with people hugging and then teaming up to collaborate.
That makes Sunday a travel day if you’re planning to research in the library on Monday through Wednesday. RootsTech opened on Thursday, February 29th, but for speakers, events began on Wednesday afternoon.
Saturday is packing day. Every single technology item needs to be checked and checked again. Trust me on this – Murphy LIVES at RootsTech, and he has been cloned because every speaker has some kind of issue that needs to be resolved.
The camaraderie is amazing as everyone helps everyone.
Kitters, one of our now-elderly rescue cats, wasn’t fond of me leaving and tried to pack herself in my suitcase. She missed slightly, but I clearly got the idea. She figured that if she didn’t look at me, I wouldn’t notice, and maybe she could go along!
I was excited and laid out my new chromosome leggings for the trip.
Jim made me a peanut butter English Muffin for breakfast on the way in the car. Trust me, I did not want to be awake.
My flight left hours before dawn, as in 5-something. I figured that my trip through the airport would be made at record speed. No one in their right mind would be there.
I still allowed almost 2 hours, as the airlines suggest – and guess what – I needed every minute of it.
I have never seen my home airport so jammed, with incredibly long lines both to check luggage and at the TSA. Everyone was grouchy, to say the least, passengers and staff alike.
I was afraid I’d miss my flight, but thankfully I didn’t. I even had five minutes or so to chat with another genealogist who was on the same flight.
I figured my “close call” for the week was over at this point.
Salt Lake City
I arrived in Salt Lake City and called an Uber. I’m not fond of snow, but snow on the mountains is beautiful, especially if it’s not in the city.
The ride from the airport into the city isn’t long – maybe 15-20 minutes.
Salt Lake City isn’t terribly large – tucked into a valley. You can see the mountains everyplace you look in SLC.
As we entered the city, I could see the familiar buildings on the left and right. The conference center is beside that tall silver building on the left.
I was getting excited!
It was only about 10 AM mountain time and I had been trying to arrange for early checking at the Marriott City Creek which is across the street from the convention center and a block or so away from the library where I would be spending the next two or three days.
I like that hotel because it has a Starbucks in the lobby, and the hotel’s location is super convenient, especially in inclement weather.
Because the RootsTech speaker rooms were reserved in a block, I could not change my reservation personally and had not actually been able to get ahold of a human who could alter my reservation – but I was lucky, and they did have a room that I could get into early.
I’ve developed a pattern, as have most repeat RootsTech attendees. Many of us walk to Harmons, the local grocery store, and grab snacks for the week. The food locally is quite expensive. The Salt Stone restaurant in the hotel is adequate, but I wanted snacks and something like Lunchables for the for the FSL. Nearby restaurants closed during Covid and never reopened. No one wants to take time away from research to walk to a restaurant for food.
It was cold and slightly windy, as it often is in SLC, but it was actually rather pleasant, considering that it’s still winter, so walking was no inconvenience.
I headed down the elevator and was looking forward to a sunny walk to the store.
Trapped in the Cavern of Doom
I stepped off the elevator and headed for the front doors of the hotel when I realized that this side exit would cut off about half a block each way. There was no need to walk to the front door to circle back again past this exit.
Wonderful!
Since all of SLC is built on the side of a mountain and in the valley, I wanted to check and be sure this actually did exit to the street.
Yes, indeed, I could see the street out the shutters and I was pleased for the shortcut.
I opened the door and stepped down the two steps to street level. The door automatically closed behind me.
I pushed on the outer door and it would not open. I tried again, thinking it was just sticky. Still wouldn’t budge, but it felt like it should.
The area looked very unkempt. Maybe it really wasn’t an exit? But lighted exit signs pointed the way. Right?
I thought that was strange since there was no sign on the door I had just come through saying anything like “emergency exit only,” and even if it had been an emergency exit, the door is still supposed to open.
I tried again, but the door simply would not open.
Ok, so I turned around to go back inside.
Only to see this.
There WAS NO WAY BACK INSIDE.
I swear, it looks like people have been scratching and digging at that that door.
And, there was no way to get outside.
I was trapped in a small concrete Cavern of Doom.
Did I mention that I’m claustrophobic?
I refuse to even consider an escape room, but suddenly, I’m in a very small one – alone – with no way out.
I could feel the anxiety surging through my blood.
I had to control this, because I had to be able to think.
There was no way to get my fingers in that gap to pry the door open. Nothing in my purse that might work either. So I decided to try to see if the outer door was just stuck. I threw my whole body weight against it.
Nothing.
The handle depressed, kind of askew, but the door would not open.
I remembered that the entire hallway was just conference rooms, so no one was going to be using them on a Sunday.
I decided to pound on the inner door, just in case someone could hear me.
Dead silence.
OK, what next?
I decided to call the front desk.
Yes, call the front desk. That’s it! Hopefully I would get a human and not that blasted “select this option” menu that I had kept getting when I was trying to modify my reservation.
The front desk would send someone to retrieve me.
I tried calling, but got the reservation center that is not the local number.
By now, I was shaking.
Thank Heavens I had my phone. I remembered that if you enter a location in a Google maps, they often give you the local phone number of the business you’re trying to reach.
I typed in Marriott, and the location popped up, with a local number.
THANK GOD!!!!
I called, and an actual human answered. What a relief!
I explained that I was trapped and explained exactly where.
“Enter the front door. The front desk is on your left. The Salt Stone Restaurant is straight ahead. The hallway by the restaurant is the elevators. Not that hallway. The hallway just before that – the only other hallway on that side. Turn right, the only way you can go, towards the street. Walk down the hallway towards the exit sign. Turn left. Double doors on the left. Not those. Exit door straight in front to the street. That door. Please come open it. I’m trapped.
Please hurry!”
The female who answered sounded confused.
I repeat myself again.
She hesitantly says OK and hangs up.
I wait.
Nothing.
No footsteps.
No voice.
I’m pounding on the door and calling.
Silence.
I call the number again.
The same woman answers.
I ask, none too politely, where she is.
She tells me she’s confused.
I give her my phone number and tell her NOT TO HANG UP.
She says she won’t, but she can’t figure out where I am.
I explain this over again.
She says OK, she’s coming.
I implore her not to hang up.
Click – she hangs up.
I pound and call and wait again.
Nothing.
I’m increasingly panicked.
I tell myself there’s no reason to panic. It’s just a small space, and I will eventually get out.
I won’t freeze to death anytime soon.
I MUST MAINTAIN MY COMPOSURE to be able to get myself out of this.
I wish this were a nightmare, and I could just wake up. It feels like a night terror.
I call again. The woman says she has to get her manager.
This time, she laid the phone down.
I hear two women talking.
A different woman comes to the phone.
I’m explaining all over again.
She says she’s coming.
DO NOT HANG UP!!!
Click.
More pounding and yelling on the door so they will hear me.
Nothing.
Ok, T-H-I-N-K calmly. Plan D because so far plans A-C have not worked.
I am going to give this 5 more minutes of pounding, and then I’m going to call 911.
They WILL FIND ME, and THEY WILL RELEASE ME from this concrete hell.
Yes, it’s going to be incredibly embarrassing, especially if the door does work with jiggling it a bit or something like that. Maybe I’m just not strong enough.
How can minutes possibly be this long?
Try the outer door again. Repeatedly. Push everyplace.
Yell even more loudly. Maybe someone outside on the street will hear you and get help. The voices outside drift away.
Distantly, I hear two women’s voices in the hotel.
They are getting closer. Approaching in the hallway.
THANK GOD!!!
FINALLY!
This seemed like an eternity but had only actually been about 20 minutes.
What took them so long??
My heart was pounding its way out of my chest. Good thing I don’t have a heart condition. I think this counts as a stress test.
The door begins to open, and the landing is so small that the door pushes me down the two steps. I don’t care. To steady myself but mostly to be sure it doesn’t close again, leaving me trapped, I grab ahold of the edge of that open door and hold on for dear life.
Once inside, I angrily demanded of the two females what took them so long.
Where were they?
They both looked entirely stunned.
They just stared at me incredulously.
I said, “I called the front desk three times. You hung up. Where were you?”
They told me they were Starbucks employees who just happened to hear me and had nothing to do with the front desk. They were headed into the two double doors where the food supplies were stored.
I suddenly realized I was yelling at the wrong people. I apologized profusely and headed for the front desk.
A man was working the front desk.
I was furious.
I explained what had just happened, and he told me that there were no women working the front desk. He gave me what I term “the side-eye,” which essentially expressed disbelief.
On my phone, I showed him the number I had called. There’s another Marriott, the City Center, just a couple blocks away. Apparently that’s the number that popped up on my phone and I called their front desk. Still, they did not call me back. Someone was obviously in distress.
The man seemed to think the issue was resolved now that I had been freed, but it clearly was NOT.
I insisted that he come with me NOW so I could show him the problem. I did not want that to happen to anyone else.
I took him into the Cavern of Doom, while I stood with the door open into the hallway. Trust me, I was under no circumstances going back in there. He could not open the door either. He said that it appeared that a screw was loose. The handle depressed unevenly, and the screw certainly could have been loose.
I don’t care what was wrong. It should never have been in that dilapidated condition, and it needed to be fixed ASAP. He said he would put a sign on the door not to use it and notify engineering. What if someone did not have their phone and was trapped there overnight, or worse? You could freeze to death.
I was still shaking badly and could feel the adrenaline coursing through my body. I really, really needed that walk to Harmons.
I went into the Starbucks to apologize to the ladies, my rescuers, again, and they made me a cup of decaf coffee. Bless their hearts. They showed more compassion than anyone else other than the Fire Marshall’s office.
I left a message for the hotel general manager, and I called the Fire Marshall’s office on Monday morning. The Fire Marshall’s office was very concerned and compassionate. I had taken photos. I took two photos inside when I was trapped in the Cavern of Doom thinking I could send them to the front desk or the firefighters if I had to call 911 and it might be a clue as to where to find me. I went back and took pictures of the hallway with the exit signs for the Fire Marshall’s office.
I wanted them to see the exit signs directing the unsuspecting to said Cavern.
They requested the photos.
Furthermore, on my Facebook page, Sunday afternoon, another well-known genealogist told me that she had been trapped IN THAT EXACT SAME LOCATION IN THE SAME HOTEL 4 years prior. Yes, four years.
That infuriated me.
She said she would vouch for me, so I sent that screenshot to the Fire Marshall too.
This is not a new problem, and the general manager surely should have known about it, which made me even angrier.
This isn’t a neglected maintenance issue – it’s worse. It’s a huge, chronic, safety issue – potentially life and death in the event of an emergency.
There’s no excuse for management NOT to know about it.
If it’s repeatedly problematic, it should be checked daily. It should be permanently remedied.
What if someone froze to death in there?
What if there was a fire?
Or an earthquake that required evacuation? They had a 5.7 magnitude earthquake in 2021 that toppled Angel Moroni from the Salt Lake City Temple and the church buildings are still under repair/renovation with scaffolding and cranes visible across the skyline.
The fire Marshal visited on Monday, and I verified with the manager that the door worked after their visit. However, the handle still depressed unevenly, so will it continue to work? The entire handle/door needs to be replaced. Minimally, there needs to be an emergency phone or an emergency call button in the Cavern of Doom, just like in elevators.
I hope the hotel was cited and fined, and I hope the Fire Marshall inspected the other emergency egresses too.
I don’t know what the final resolution is/was, but the general manager said he would have engineering “remedy the situation” when I talked to him the following day.
The general manager was pleasant enough and acted professionally. I informed him very directly that the buck stops with him and that there is absolutely no excuse or justification.
Full stop.
None.
Nada.
He mentioned that there are a lot of doors in the hotel, and he can’t really check them all.
PLEASE!!!
In retrospect, this Marriott is in a prime location for the Salt Palace conference venue across the street, along with the FSL, and they don’t need to do better. They just need to be there.
I had an extremely difficult time sleeping. If that ground-floor exit, which would be used more often than other emergency exits, is in that condition and has been at least twice in four years, what do the rest of the egresses look like? For example, what about the stairs from the upper floors in case of a fire? Do those doors open?
This had/has disaster written all over it.
I will be following up with the local Fire Marshall’s office and probably with Marriott Corporate as well.
I know that the FamilySearch folks would never knowingly put their speakers and guests at risk, so I think I’m going to suggest that perhaps they could schedule a pair of their missionary elders to test this door episodically – one elder staying outside the door, of course.
Maybe not a bad idea for the Fire Marshall too.
I’m hoping that next year, perhaps the Hyatt that is attached to the Salt Palace can be the conference hotel and would be willing to match the Marriott pricing.
Harmons, Finally
Yes, I did make it to Harmons grocery store. After all that, Harmons seemed downright boring and anticlimactic, which is exactly what I needed.
I saw a beautiful display of orchids. My soul needed some calming peace, and if I had been at home, I would have purchased one.
Instead, I took a photo that soothed my frayed nerves with their beauty.
I purchased my goodies, including chocolate, and returned to the hotel to unpack. Inside my suitcase, I discovered a treasure. It seems that Kitters and my other cat kids, Chai and Mandy, had packed something in my suitcase since Kitters couldn’t pack herself.
Kitters is not doing well. This made me sob like a baby.
You have no idea how much I needed this. Not the Peeps, but the letter.
I smiled and settled in to prepare a research list for the FSL the next day.
Sunday was a VERY long day. I aged about a century and couldn’t help but think about my ancestor, the Reverend John Lothropp who was imprisoned in horrific conditions for two years. I feel you, John. I wonder how many other ancestors have experienced something similar or far worse than my brief entrapment.
I was sure Monday would be much better. After all, I was going to chase ancestors for the next two days.
I guarantee you, I avoided anything that even resembled a shortcut that might morph into a Cavern of Doom.
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