Res. Hall warnings unclear

By Jedd Rosche

Published March 14, 2006

When two tornado warnings were issued for Boone County on Sunday, some students living in residence halls were told to seek shelter. Others were told about the warning, but they were not advised on what precautions to take. Some heard nothing at all.

Although Director of Residential Life Frankie Minor said a policy exists to warn students to seek shelter during the threat of a tornado, interviews with officials and residents of halls around campus on Monday showed that a single policy was not implemented to tell students about the tornado warnings.

Anna Fury, a resident of Respect Hall, said she was not told to leave her room to take shelter during the afternoon warning, which began at 4:45 p.m., and heard about the tornado warning from a phone call from her roommate's mother.

"We were not forced to evacuate," Fury said. "Nobody came around to tell us."

Fury said she and her roommate went downstairs for safety, but she said students there were regularly entering and exiting the building during the warning. She said the two of them went back to their room and decided to stay there through the second tornado warning.

C.J. Travis, a community adviser in Respect Hall, said he did not attempt to get the residents of his floor to take shelter because he did not think the storm was heading toward campus. He said it is difficult to move the residents if the evacuation is not mandatory.

Minor said every student should have been notified if a tornado warning was in effect in the area.

"As soon as the staff gets indication that there is a problem or a potential problem, we evacuate the students into safer spaces in the building," Minor said. "We let students know what is going on."

Minor said the evacuation process depended on other ways to notify students outside of staff members, including the media and outdoor sirens.

"We rely upon other means, radio, TV and so on, to alert people," Minor said.

Minor said residence hall advisers were trained to inform students of danger "by any way possible," as long as it did not jeopardize the lives of the staff members in the process.

"Our goal is to try to effectively communicate to everyone," Minor said, "but if we went into a situation where we tried to identify where every student in a residence hall was located to make sure that he or she is down in a secure location, then we're putting our own staff at risk."

But some students who were in their rooms during the warnings said they were not told.

Arthur Fishel, a resident of McDavid Hall, said he and most other residents of the second floor were not informed of the tornado warnings because their peer adviser had the day off from work. Fishel said he heard the tornado siren, but no officials came to tell him where to go.

"I don't have a television, so I went downstairs," Fishel said. "They told everyone to go into the women's bathroom because it was the inner most part of the hall."

Minor said that though each facility had a different way for evacuating the students to a safe location, he described the process of alerting students as a unified procedure.

Other students on campus described largely different evacuation techniques.

"We heard an announcement telling us to move to the basement over the PA system," said Jordan Black, a resident of Wolpers Hall. "My roommate and I stayed in the room."

Black said no advisers knocked on students' doors to see if anyone was staying behind.

During the same warning, Lathrop Hall staff members used bullhorns and the building's public address system to inform students of the tornado warning. The staff then proceeded to make sure all residents left their rooms to take shelter in the basement, said Lathrop resident Maggie Reyland.

"The CAs and PAs were yelling so that everyone could hear them and get downstairs," Reyland said.

Advisers told students in Gillett, Cramer, Jones and Stafford halls to seek shelter in the buildings' basements or inner rooms.

Minor said all residence halls would participate in a tornado drill for colleges around the state today at 1:30 p.m. The drill was planned before Sunday's storms.

— Staff Writer

Tina Marie Macias

contributed reporting

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