tornado shelters. For school buses, drivers need to know the closest shelters along their routes. With these rapidly developing weather situations, especially if a watch has been issued for your area, constant monitoring of weather conditions is essential. Your local NWS Office is your best source of information. Go online to
http://www.weather.gov/ and click your location on the U.S. map to connect to your local NWS office. Weather radar is the best tool to follow thunderstorm devel- opment and movement. Doppler radar, which detects rotation in a thunderstorm and has been widely used since the 1980s, often gives the first indications of strong winds, straight line or tornadic. Ian Wolfe, safety director for the Oklahoma City Public Schools, stated that his school system can close for the day if the area falls under a Tornado Watch and the situation is noted as being extremely dangerous. Some school systems have a similar policy, others prefer to monitor the situation while remaining open. Many transportation and safety directors have a NOAA Weather Radio with an alarm feature. If a severe thunderstorm or tornado warning is issued by the NWS, an alarm will be sounded. For a severe thunderstorm warning, an even higher level of alert is called for but not necessarily evacuation to shelters unless a very definite immediate threat exists. Brown said if actual damage has been reported with the storm, then action will be taken by schools in the storm’s path.
Tornado warnings represent an even greater threat. For many school districts, a tornado warning means that all schools go into immediate “lockdown.” Everyone should proceed as quickly as possible to a designated shelter. In Oklahoma City, a large school district with excellent weather resources, the district has been broken up into 16 warning zones, according to Wolfe. Evacuation to shel- ters can be ordered only for those schools immediately threatened. For transportation, no buses should leave a school or yard during a full tornado warning. If buses are en route, communica- tion is critical during these events. In particular, bus drivers need to be informed immediately if severe weather is threatening. Te standard two-way radio is typically used to convey a warning sit- uation (cell phones could also be used in an emergency). As Pettit added, “We make sure to maintain calmness and not use words that will cause panic in our students or drivers.” If drivers receive a warning message while on the road, they then proceed to the near- est designated shelter depending on where they are on their route, not necessarily the home school. Tis shelter information is part of their standard training. Upon arrival, students and drivers will proceed to the shelter and stay there until the warning has expired. Te worst case scenario would be if the bus couldn’t get to a shelter in time and it encountered the extreme weather on the open road. What do you do then? Tere is a dichotomy of opin- ions. Pettit in Joplin and Scott Lane, transportation director of
QUAL IT Y MAT TERS
68 School Transportation News • MAY 2016
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