Tornadoes carry a rating.

When a twister hits the ground meteorologists take into account the wind speed and damaged caused to rate the storm. Tornadoes are rated from F1, minor damage, to F5, where the building is blown away.

At The Chart we think Missouri Southern’s emergency preparedness should be given a similar rating, and let’s just say that we were not blown away.

Availability:

A quick online search turns up emergency plans for only Spiva Library.

The Student Handbook’s most recent online version (2005-2006) has nothing on the topic.

Emergency plans should be available for review by the University community.

Speed:

When the sirens sounded instructors hustled their students to the lower levels of their respective buildings, but is there no provision for in-building alarms? We have heard stories about inner classrooms where students did not hear the sirens, but were alerted by a text message from a friend or family member. Since these students were already in basement classrooms, they stayed put. But what if it had been a different type of emergency?

Where was Jyngle, the mass cell phone notification for emergencies?

Students should be notified in the case of all emergencies: severe weather, a fire or a security problem, like a shooter on campus. Cell phone numbers were collected last fall for the Jyngle system, but no message was sent.

Students waited out the storm in the basements of Plaster and Reynolds Halls. They complained because they were told not to leave the library. In Webster Hall, students came and went: some because they were just arriving, others because they were tired of waiting. Once they left their offices, faculty and staff were away from an e-mail all clear.

Storm warnings issued campus-wide should give the same information as the National Weather Service warnings. They should be prompt and there should be identifiable procedures and actions to follow. They should be for a set time and expire with the storm.

Procedures should be posted clearly in heavily travelled locations and time should be allotted for campus-wide drills. The severe-weather season has just begun. Let’s be ready when the next round hits.

Common sense supplemented this week’s tornado response, but the plan itself hardly ranks at all.