High Risk Days: Should Schools Be Closed

[Tim Stoecklein]

I voted no, and for many of the reasons already mentioned. If I was a parent who was concerned about my child being safe in school during severe weather, I'd volunteer to take an active role in assisting the school administration in getting their severe wx information.

My kid goes to daycare located in a mobile home park eek: ), do you think I'm going to go pick him up everytime a High Risk area covers us? No, but I will do my part to make sure the lady is aware of the situation, and that means starting with a heads-up when I drop him off.

Rather than asking schools to close down, volunteer to educated the administration, bussing staff, coaches, and other staff on the dangers and indicators of severe wx. I already have two such presentations on my schedule in the coming month.

 

[Damon Poole]

I also voted No. Students and staff should be kept in school where they can be protected when the situation is too dangerous for early dismissal. The only exception should be for parents to be able to pick up their kids.

Another rule should be to make administrators aware of proper sheltering and require them to stop using gymnasiums and auditoriums for mass gatherings of students during tornado emergencies. This would apply for ballgames, emergency gatherings, or assemblies. Stop wasting time gathering everybody in one spot, get them into proper shelter, wherever they are, as fast as possible.

For years, the NWS has had school safety programs for severe storms. Maybe it's time to hold school officials responsible for the safety of students and staff.

 

[cedwards]

Well said Tim. When I was teaching here in Shawnee, I asked about their tornado plans. The middle school was built just a few years earlier. All interior rooms are reinforced safe rooms. This gets the kids out of hallways and a buffer of other rooms surrounding them. It appears that they thought it out when they build the school.

In 99% of cases the school will be safer than letting the kids out to wander the streets or on buses. Remember, any precaution you take is to minimize your chances of being hurt or killed by a tornado. The ONLY 100% measure is to not be there, but how are you going to do that. forecasts will never be good enough to know hours in advance the exact path and time of tornadoes. We can only hope to do the best we can with the information we have.

 

[Kenny Drake]

Even if schools cancelled classes on a high risk day, you really think parents are going to stay home from work or take their kids to work? I honestly doubt it. That leaves kids at home, alone... during a possible tornado outbreak, not a good idea. What took place yesterday was a textbook example of everything going right. Warnings were issued up to 30 minutes in advance (that is fantastic, btw) and the school administration got all of their students in the right place. If they were to let students leave early I can almost guarantee you more life would have been lost yesterday in Enterprise. FACE IT, no matter what you or anyone else does sometimes there is nothing anyone can do about it and some people will lose their life. Sure, the school could have been built like a lot of schools in the plains (reinforced rooms) but I doubt they had the money for that (came from taxpayers), in which case the very people who are complaining about what happened yesterday (parents) should be looking at themselves. I hate to be so blatant, but sometimes you have to be. If you want your kids to be safer at school, pay the extra money for a structurally reinforced school. In the SE US this seems even more relevant as a reinforced school could be a hurricane shelter also. For this reason, there is no excuse for having reinforced rooms in schools in the plains states, but not in the southeast. And Shawnee is not a big town by any means, probably about the same size as a lot of the small towns in the southeast.

 

[cedwards]

The governor put it very well in is speech. The school did everything right. They made the right decision.

Did anybody see the areal views of the school? I am amazed that there were only 8 fatalities.

I heard on report that all fatalities were in the hallway. I don't see any blame in the school's reaction.

 

[rdale]

"The school did everything right."

I didn't hear the speech... The school had 20 minutes of warning, and per students in the building:

===
"It was in a split second that we sat down and started to cover ourselves before the storm hit"

At Enterprise High School, officials had been watching the storm Thursday as it swept through southern Missouri and headed into Alabama. The students were preparing to leave for the day when the sirens started up and the lights went out.

Teacher Grannison Wagstaff was with them. "I said 'Here it comes. Hit the deck," he told CBS's "The Early Show" Friday. "I turned around and I could actually see the tornado coming toward me."
===

I don't get it. How can it take 20 minutes to get students out of their classrooms and into the hallway shelter area? It sounds like they didn't do anything until the storm was upon them...

 

[mike scantlin]

speculation speculation speculation speculation

 

[Jay McCoy]

speculation speculation speculation speculation

I dont consider survivors actual reports as speculation. We know a warning was issued 20 minutes before it struck yet obviously the students/teachers only knew of it when the sirens were sounded. If the school admins had known of the situation why didnt the make an announcement to take shelter. 20 minutes compared to a minute or less is a lifetime in an emergency event. It was chaos. Kids in hallways, closets, the auditorium and worst of all outside!!! LIke Edwards said, It is a miracle more werent killed.

By the way have they issued a preliminary rating yet?? I havent had the chance to look.

 

[rdale]

speculation speculation speculation speculation

Dead wrong... I was watching radar and the chatroom with NWS/EM/TV mets, and the warning came out 20 minutes prior to the tornado. That sort of claim is not at all going to help this discussion!

Strangely enough the NWS TAE website makes no mention of this event at all, and no LSR/PNS have been issued from them today with even a prelim report. Anyone know if the national team was called in?

- Rob

 

[matt patterson]

Does anyone know how large the school building was? Is this the largest building that has been hit for the new EF Scale?

 

[Jeremy Bower]

This is only my opinion but I think in due time an event like this should be reviewed as a case study but not the way you probably think. Case studies of severe weather events are great and I'm always intrigued in looking at what exactly made a certain event come together. However, I think an event like this a case study in the area of severe weather preparedness and mitigation should be conducted. Its very easy to conduct an evaluation of an area's lack of preparedness AFTER the event happens. I'm currently working on a project in evaluating Lincoln's preparedness and mitigation strategies and everyone in the community has been very cooperative in developing better mitigation strategies. Hopefully, more projects like this will be conducted around the country.

As far as closing schools on high risk days, that would be the easiest thing to do. However, the easiest thing to do isn't always the best thing to do. Schools should be working with the local EMA to make sure they are properly prepared in the event of severe weather. However, I also understand this isn't plausible in all areas.

 

[Kevin Askew]

I personally think no school is the best option. If ya let school out early, theres the chance the tornado could hit at time of commute from school to home. IE busses, driving in lines of student traffic etc. School in session drawback....Like we seen a day ago. Alot of kids condenced in one location IF HIT we see yesterday all over again. So I say no school & make aware of special WX situation. it will keep parents, kids much more aware of the situation at hand.
Kevin

 

[Kenny Drake]

"The school did everything right."

I didn't hear the speech... The school had 20 minutes of warning, and per students in the building:

===
"It was in a split second that we sat down and started to cover ourselves before the storm hit"

At Enterprise High School, officials had been watching the storm Thursday as it swept through southern Missouri and headed into Alabama. The students were preparing to leave for the day when the sirens started up and the lights went out.

Teacher Grannison Wagstaff was with them. "I said 'Here it comes. Hit the deck," he told CBS's "The Early Show" Friday. "I turned around and I could actually see the tornado coming toward me."
===

I don't get it. How can it take 20 minutes to get students out of their classrooms and into the hallway shelter area? It sounds like they didn't do anything until the storm was upon them...

That conflicts with what I heard from a student and her father on CNN last night. The father actually went to the school to pick-up her child and got there just before the tornado hit and went inside and said everyone was in the hallways on their knees... I'd say it takes at least a minute to get out of your car and into the school.

 

[mike scantlin]

my point is that if you werent there, and are forming opinions from your cnn news cast, then what you are saying means nothing. if you have considerable information, ok then.

have any of you ever tried to control a few hundred high schoolers who dont care what you think? i can promise you it was complete chaos in that place and its a miracle that only 8 died. i was in high school a few years ago, and i sure as hell wouldnt have jumped in a hall way 20 minutes before a storm was to hit. i would have left.

 

[Bob Hall]

I don’t do a lot of posting here, but this one caught me so off guard. In post disaster tragedies someone always screams “We need to do something different!” Statistically children are the very safest when they are at school. Occasionally something like Columbine happens, but if you add up the millions of hours that our youth are safely instructed this is an anomaly. Compare the strength and safety of a brick or cinder block constructed government building with that of a mobile home.

Every school should be equipped with a NOAA all hazards radio and the staff instructed on proper sheltering techniques. I’m not a parent, but with the many school closing that we have had recently in Oklahoma, I’ve seen the problem closure creates. There are a lot of unsupervised kids who’s parents can’t quickly arrange daycare. Parents such as call center agents making $9-$12 an hour can’t afford not to come to work, and can’t afford $6 per hour for daycare.

Putting unsupervised kids in less safe structures and in most homes provided no warning mechanism doesn’t make them safer. If I were the Principal, I’d shelter the kids in place till midnight if the risk were ongoing.

On a technology side it would be really useful to have a “call blasting” switch. Call centers can easily deliver 25,000 calls an hour to remind you that you gas bill is late. It would be nice if a Principal could have a recorded message that told parents to please not worry or flock to the school to retrieve their children, and that we are safely sheltering everyone and a to monitor local broadcast television or radio for updates.