Whether or not you know anything about the weather, the wailing tornado sirens this past Sunday should have let you know, in their annoyingly high-pitched way, that something big was coming. That "something" was a severe storm system that created tornadoes in Madison County, as well as Hilliard, Powell, Lewis Center, Galena, Sunbury, Pataskala and Newark. Between 1:00 and 2:00 p.m. tornado sirens blared in Franklin County, alerting hall director Chris Hempfling. He alerted Jeff Akers, assistant director of Residence Life. "I texted all the hall directors and said 'tornado warning in effect until 1:46 please be advised,'" he said. The regular process for a tornado drill at Otterbein includes several steps and the cooperation of staff members to evacuate students to the designated safe locations. The location for each building is on the back of the dorm doors. The process begins with hall directors tuning into the weather station on special radios provided by Otterbein. Then hall directors contact resident assistants (RAs) and take a count of available staff in the building. After that, RAs and hall directors work together to get students to the safe locations. Some RAs moved students to the designated locations while others gathered residents in lounge areas to keep an eye on the weather. Many of the hall directors had gone home for Mother's Day, which made communication more difficult and may have contributed to initial confusion about what to do on the part of RAs and residents. The Davis Complex, Hanby Hall and Dunlap-King all evacuated students to safe areas while the Triad and the Suites gathered in lounge areas. Both directors of Mayne Hall were out of town and said the residents "knew what to do" but the directors were unsure if evacuation actually took place or not. Becky Vogt, junior English and health promotion and fitness major and RA in the Suites, was on duty Sunday. She was spending time with her boyfriend when his dad called to let them know about the tornado. "His dad called and we turned on the TV and were watching it. Allison (the Suites hall director) texted me and told me to tell people where the safe spots were," Vogt said. She felt that the process itself seemed fine. "A bunch of the residents themselves didn't know we had safe spots but once we told them everyone knew what to do," she said. Sarah Martindell, senior English major and hall director for Hanby Hall, moved her residents to the safe locations until the warning was over, in accordance with Otterbein policy. "The RAs are supposed to knock on resident's doors as they are walking to the safe location," she said. "We can't force anyone to go but we can set a good example by going there ourselves." In normal cases, a tornado warning would be preceded by a tornado watch, giving Otterbein and Franklin County time to prepare. Sunday's tornado was unique in that no watch was issued, only a warning. The sirens were delayed approximately eight minutes, activating at 1:24 p.m. while the first warning was issued at 1:16 p.m. "The unfortunate thing was normally we have a (tornado) watch, which gives us a little bit of time to know that something might pop up," Jim Leonard, Franklin County EMA director, told 10TV News. "Unfortunately, this time there was nothing before the warning and by the time I got the pager off my belt and got the button pushed there was a lag time," he said. Akers agreed, saying "it was really rapid." In April, NBC 4 investigated how many tornado sirens were active in and around Franklin County. According to the article, "NBC put in a public records request recently to find out if most sirens are now in working order. Most of them are, except for the occasional problem location." The problem Otterbein students and resident life staff faced with the sirens on Sunday wasn't necessarily the timing but the quality of sound. I heard them, I just didn't know if they were a drill or not," said Vogt. Martindell felt the sirens were loud enough. "I could hear them over my music," she said. TORNADO TIDBITS 2008:
1. Last year 1,092 total tornadoes were reported. Already 910 have been reported this year.
2. Last year 50 people total were killed by tornados. This year 96 have been killed.
3. Last year the total amount of time tornadoes touched the ground was 12 minutes.
t&c;
