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Schools Test Tornado Readiness

Tribune photo by JAY NOLAN

Students at Wilson Middle School took part in a tornado drill by leaving the classrooms and taking cover in the halls.

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By NEIL JOHNSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 6, 2008

TAMPA - A day after tornadoes in five states killed dozens of people, Hillsborough County school students crouched in hallways, heads tucked to their knees, practicing what to do should a twister threaten.

It was part of a mandatory statewide drill to prepare for a tornado. By week's end all of Hillsborough's 236 schools and 192,000 students will have taken part in the test.

Because most of the county's schools will be closed Friday for the state fair, the county started the annual drills today. Most other counties in Florida will conduct the drill Friday.

Here's how the school district's tornado plan works:

* When the National Weather Service issues a tornado watch, computer pop-up alerts go to schools. Principals also receive alerts on pagers, and each school has a weather radio that sounds alerts for tornadoes and other severe weather.

* Students are evacuated from portables, auditoriums, cafeterias, gyms. Any students outdoors are brought inside.

* When a tornado watch becomes a tornado warning, students are taken to interior rooms if possible and told to "duck and cover." They remain there until the weather service says the threat has passed.

A tornado watch means weather conditions are favorable for tornadoes to form. A tornado warning means one has been seen or shows up on radar. A warning covers smaller areas than watches.

That's how it played out this morning at Woodrow Wilson Middle School in Hyde Park.

Already alerted that a tornado watch was in effect, school administrators and teachers were ready when the alarm sounded six sharp clangs. Teachers quickly led students from their classrooms and into an interior corridor.

There, the students sat on the floor, backs to the banks of lockers, pulled their knees to their chests, and ducked their heads. Teachers shut metal fire doors at each end of the corridor.

The students, roughly 200 on the school's third floor, stayed there in absolute silence for 10 minutes until the intercom announced the threat of the tornado was passed. The same procedure was repeated on the second floor.

A committee reviews what happens to see whether improvements are needed, said Lonnie Choate, assistant principal.

For example, students used to be evacuated from a second, windowless building on the campus to the three-story main building. That approach was scrapped because it meant exposing the students to the elements.

Now they remain in the separate building.

This year, Choate said, the safety committee likely will look at whether students close to an exterior fire door and closest to the outside should go elsewhere.

Each school adjusts its tornado safety procedures to suit its layout. Ideally, students should be in interior rooms, but barring that, rooms with no windows. If that isn't possible, the students would sit on the floor with backs to windows and duck and cover, Choate said.

If there is time after a watch is issued, the school may use a telephone system to alert parents, said Linda Cobbe, spokeswoman for the school system.

It's unlikely that calls to the school during such an emergency would be answered, she said.

Parents should not drive to the school.

"We don't want parents driving around in a tornado," Cobbe said.

At the University of South Florida, a tornado warning would trigger text alerts sent by cell phones to more than 10,000 students, faculty and staff saying that a tornado is threatening the campus, said Ken Gullette, USF spokesman.

Also, the campus has sirens to warn of an approaching storm, he said.

The University of Tampa also would send e-mail and cell phone text alerts if a tornado threatens.

Those warnings also likely would include instructions for students, staff members and faculty to seek shelter in bathrooms or stairwells, said university spokesman Eric Cardenas.

Planning likely saved the lives of students at Union University in Jackson, Tenn., on Tuesday night. Many students took refuge in dormitory bathrooms when tornado sirens sounded.

A number of the university's 13 dormitories were reduced to rubble.

Though most of Florida's tornadoes form during the summer when schools are out, less frequent but much more powerful tornadoes can strike during the winter.

Those twisters are spawned when approaching cold fronts collide with warmer air in their paths. That's what happened Tuesday across the South.

The tornadoes that struck near Lady Lake last year came from an approaching front.

The National Weather Service said 13 tornadoes struck in West Central and Southwest Florida last year, accounting for one-quarter of all tornado reports in the state.

The tornadoes injured 16 people and caused $67 million in damage.

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