Tornado Warning procedures in schools

[Lurrch]

Growing up there would be an announcment on the PA system and then we'd all make our way to that designated shelter area, different depending on which part of the building you were in. I remember once that the shelter was the bathroom, and someone was in there at the time and the toilet flushed.

Today, I'm appalled at our local school's plan. My daughter reports that they huddled in their classroom in a corner. The classroom has at least 2 windows in it. There are bathrooms outside their door and down the hall maybe 40 feet. Couldn't they go there? Though their restrooms don't have doors. The entrances go around a wall. That building wasn't very well designed. Very few rooms, that I can tell, aren't exposed to a window or outside wall.

[Allertor113]

Out here in Mustang, We go downstairs into literally a classroom where they have to put 400+ kids in one room its so stupid.

[Charlie Davidson]

When I started elementary school around 1999-2000 we had a tornado warning once. They had a beeping tone play through the speakers in the ceiling and didn't announce anything. When the warning was over, they sounded an "all clear" which was a steady tone for ~5 seconds. We had regular tornado drills so we knew when we heard the beeping sound we knew to take cover, so nobody had to announce anything.

Middle school... 2005-2008. They did the whole "play the beeping sound over the intercom" as well. Sometimes they would make an announcement, sometimes they wouldn't. I went through several tornado warnings while at school then. Usually if they knew that severe weather was on the way on any given day they would let us out early.. which they did a few times. One in particular that I remember was sometime in February 2008 when a tornado hit my HS and damaged one side of the school.. blew out windows and ripped the roof off part of the shop. Weird thing was.. the siren in Dickson never went off.

High school.. 2008-present. Just this year we had a tornado hit my HS AGAIN on April 4, 2011. Our HS doesn't do any of the "beep the bell" stuff, the principal just came over the intercom and said to "take cover, a tornado is coming our way". Seconds after we took shelter, it hit. I just so happened to be taking cover in the building that got hit hardest. I can't even begin to describe what it sounded like... I remember hearing the wind whistling, the lights flickering and going out and seconds later I hear glass shattering and the metal roof to the shop getting blown off. Then parts of the rest of the roof was getting torn off. As fast as it came it went.. they had to evacuate us shortly after because the building had a major gas leak. Gas department was there, then several cops arrived. Then came the fire trucks.. there had been a fire reported in the building which I took shelter. Turns out that water got into a smoke detector in the fire alarm system and shorted the circuit, causing the system to trip. I got to take a peek around the building to see the damage. Pieces of the roof were EVERYWHERE. Trees on cars, hardwood trees snapped clean off, power lines down, etc. Turns out my HS sustained a direct hit from an EF-1 tornado with 110mph winds. The damage around town was worse. Trees and power lines were down everywhere.

[Jim Z]

when I was in grade school (ancient history) the city fire dept. would notify the admin of each school in the city that a warning had been issued. then the warning was the usual school bell pulsed repeatedly, and we had to go into the hallways (away from windows) and do the "duck and cover" routine.

I think only once when I was there, maybe it was fourth grade, did we actually have a tornado warning.

I got to take a peek around the building to see the damage. Pieces of the roof were EVERYWHERE. Trees on cars, hardwood trees snapped clean off, power lines down, etc. Turns out my HS sustained a direct hit from an EF-1 tornado with 110mph winds. The damage around town was worse. Trees and power lines were down everywhere.

[r4tbolts]

Back in my day it was bells on/off on/off or beeps on the PA till all the kids were in the halls facing the walls with heads covered (every shcool I ever attended also had a T-bolt not far away in the neighborhood and the tornado bells always followed quickly after the t-bolts fired up) . Fire alarms were horns or buzzers.

The first school I was in (Lansing) also had a brown box ringer with 1, 2, 3, and 4 (for test, alert, attack, etc) in the office but no dialer. The school also had a t-bolt on a pole less than 50' from my classroom window(nothing like blowing out a kid's eardrums for a siren test on a warm spring day with the windows open) .

Much later in the 80's I recall most the schools and public buildings in the county (Jackson where I moved to) had the 10/10 receivers (civil defense blats) to put out the warning from OEM and the schools rang the bells. When my son was in school the School District he went to was pretty much on top of the game getting kids to shelter. If I am not mistaken Michigan Law is 2 Tornado Drills and 4 Fire Drills a school year.

[Brendan W]

At my school (I'm on the Top Floor...) We just Duck in the hall, NEAR WINDOWS!!! How Freaking Stupid!

[ggms24]

At my Elementary school they used to just make an announcement over the intercom and we would go into the hallway and duck down. Apparently the year before I got there they used to broadcast a beeping sound over the PA and that would signal the tornado drill, I never did find out why they stopped...

[SirenMadness]

I'm so glad our college only does fire drills. A tornado drill in Windsor is a complete waste of time. We had to put up with em in high school.

[Mantis]

At my elementary school, they set off the school bells for an approx 10-20 second run, and all the classes would sit up against the windowless parts of the hallways. This procedure worked successfully a couple of times during tornado warnings.

My high school did essentially the same thing, except they shoehorned the entire population of the building into the first floor, which was a little intrusive. That was just for the drill though for some reason; during the actual tornado warnings the teachers just shut their windows (which I thought was unwise) and continued on with class. On one occasion we got an eye-to-eye third-floor show from the 2001 outside.

[bwillcox]

In most of my schooling, the tornado warning was just an announcement over the PA system, and out into the halls we'd go. The only time it was ever for real was one occasion in high school where a downburst damaged the roof of the gym building.

I was pretty thankful I was in 5th period English class in an underground room with no windows that day as I was terrified of tornadoes then.

In the UNT dorms, they would use code-3 on the fire alarm system for a tornado warning and continuous for fire. (They still do this, bass-ackwards as it is)

The first couple of years was an old Honeywell strobe and bell system that was later upgraded to Spectra classics. I distinctly remember the Spectra system having a blue pull below it labeled TORNADO WARNING LIFT AND PULL.

Kerr hall the highrise had a Simplex voice-capable system where there would be a voice announcement. The NAs were the the cheese-wedge style plates that have FIRE on each side of the wedge with strobes underneath and Life alarm speakers.

Of course, the UNT PD would light off the EOWS 612s as well.