City of Pullman declares ‘emergency’ to deal with anticipated GameDay crowd

With the Pullman expecting a crush of people in town for Saturday’s momentous visit from ESPN’s College GameDay — perhaps as many as 75,000 people — the city council voted Tuesday night to declare an “emergency,” according to PullmanRadio.com.

No, we’re not kidding. But it’s also not as crazy or dire as it sounds, in this case.

Declaring a “state of emergency” simply allows the city to meet the needs of an unexpected situation without going through the normal channels — in this case, it allows the city to use Pullman Transit buses to move people around town. According to PullmanRadio.com, WSU asked for additional resources after being unable to secure enough private buses to accommodate the crowd.

Here’s to guessing the buses will largely be used to provide additional park-and-ride transportation before and after the actual game, which features the No. 25 Washington State Cougars and the No. 12 Oregon Ducks.

It just goes to show, once again, what a big deal this is to the entire Pullman community.