Florida High School Gets Things SO Wrong During Tornado Threat Students Seriously Endangered

This photo posted to social media last week appears to
show students evacuated to a large free standing room
in a Florida school during a tornado warning. This type
of room is the most dangerous if a tornado hit. The students 
should have been in smaller, windowless interior rooms.

Did a Florida school put a bunch of students in danger last week during a tornado warning?

Judging from some posts on social media, they might have. 

 I do have to a disclaimer, because, Duh! not everything you read in social media is true.  

Not all the facts are in, and I haven't yet seen a response from the school in question. And I don't have it all confirmed through a reliable new source.  But the person who posted the info at least seems at least somewhat credible. 

Given what I saw on X, formerly Twitter the other day, if true, this school put students in the worst possible,  most dangerous place in the school during the tornado warning. And they should have known better. 

Twisters swept through parts of Florida lastWednesday night and Thursday, causing damage from Clearwater on the state's west coast to north of Daytona Beach on the east coast.

The National Weather Service issued numerous tornado warnings, including one for a location north of Tampa.  One student at a high school that was under the tornado warning, showed students evacuated to what appears to be a gymnasium or large common room, facing the walls as a "safety" evacuation.

The student, a weather enthusiast who goes by JakeWx said he knows - like most people in tornado prone areas - that a gymnasium or similar big, open room is the worst place in a school to shelter in a tornado. 

In its tornado safety outline for schools, NOAA has this to say:

DANGER - GYMS and AUDITORIUMS: Large, open-span areas, such as gymnasiums, auditoriums and most lunchrooms can be very dangerous even in weak tornadoes, and should not be used for sheltering people. This sort of room has inherent structural weaknesses and lack of roof support, making them especially prone to collapse with weaker wind loading that more compact areas of the same school building."

NOAA says there's no one size fits all tornado safety protocol for schools, but students in general should be rushed to ground floor or basement rooms away from windows and exterior walls. Interior rest rooms are often good places to shelter. That's what JakeWx thought when his school was under a tornado warning.

"When I tried to go to a bathroom and bring other people with me, they threatened to give me a referral. Not safe at all to be in that spot, if that tornado hit us directly, we would all be dead and it would be the school's fault," JakeWx wrote on X.

Hmm. Getting detention for doing a smart thing. How Florida! 

Snark aside, if indeed this school directed kids into that big room during a tornado warning, I hope this school revisits its severe weather protocol. True, I don't know the structural integrity of the room they were in. Many Florida schools act as hurricane shelters, so the room might have been reinforced. But I still strongly doubt it was the safest place in the school. 

JackWx didn't specify which school he was in. Only that it was north of Tampa. 

El Nino is going to be going strong this winter.  That tends to increase the odds of strong storm systems in the South that can spin off tornado outbreaks. 

Severe weather safety in homes, workplaces and schools has thankfully been getting more attention. Sometimes it takes a tragedy to force this.

In December, 2021, a tornado outbreak caused widespread destruction and deaths. Those deaths included workers at a candle factory in Mayfield, Kentucky that was leveled by a tornado. Also, six people died when a tornado struck an Amazon warehouse in Illinois.

In both instances, questions were raised about worker tornado safety.  Should Mayfield employees been allowed to leave the plant for safer shelter elsewhere in town?  And did Amazon allow workers there to flee to reinforced rooms inside the sprawling warehouse to make themselves safer?

Let's just say lawsuits are ongoing in the Mayfield incident and in the Illinois Amazon deaths. 

Many schools in tornado and storm prone areas have excellent safety plans for severe weather. But not all of them. In the Florida case last week, the tornado either missed the school or lifted before it got there. No damage or injuries were reported at the school.

However, perhaps schools nationwide should review their plans to make sure they are safer than what appeared to happen last week in Florida. Either that, 

 

Amazon Won't Build Storm Shelters In Warehouses

This Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville, Illinois was
destroyed by a December 10, 2021 tornado, killing 6
people, This tragedy is prompting debate on'
tornado safety in structures like this 

In the wake of a 2021 tornado that killed six workers at an Amazon warehouse in Illinois, the giant firm said they will not construct special tornado safe rooms in their warehouse. 

As CNBC reports, this comes in response to inquiries from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY and Rep. Cori Bush, D-MO seeking more information on Amazon's plans to rebuild the Edwardsville, Illinois warehouse and questioning why it didn't have a safe room or storm shelter on site.  

Buildings like warehouse, gymnasiums, large school cafeterias, shopping malls and big box retail stores are especially dangerous in tornadoes. Their roofs are supported only by exterior walls, so these structure are prone to collapse in tornadoes and other severe storms.

True to form, the December 10, 2021 tornado in Edwardsville caused much of the Amazon warehouse roof to fall in, which in turn caused the building's 11-inch thick exterior walls to collapse inward. That's what killed the six workers. 

The walls collapsed onto a rest room where the six workers tried to take shelter. Other workers who fled to a designated storm safe room survived. the lawmakers. 

The Amazon warehouse tornado in Edwardville, Illinois on December 10, 2021 was part of a large outbreak of twisters that put the spotlight on tornado workplace safety. 

An even larger, more powerful tornado struck the town of Mayfield, Kentucky that night.  That long-tracked tornado killed 76 people, including nine people who were working at a candle factory in Mayfield. 

Shortly after the tornado, workers at the Mayfield factory said managers did not allow them to leave the facility ahead of the tornado to seek safer shelters in the basements of their nearby homes. 

Lawmakers and safety advocates are still thinking about tornado safety in warehouses and similar structures, which prompted the recent letter from 

According to CNBC:

"Amazon said in its responses that it follows guidelines from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the National Weather Service, and will continue to maintain a severe weather assembly area for workers to shelter in place. 

OSHA guidelines say that basements, storm cellars or small interior rooms provide the best protection from a tornado. But the federal government doesn't require specially built storm shelters in warehouses." 

For what it's worth, OSHA finished an investigation into the Amazon tornado deaths last April. The agency did not levy any fines or penalties against Amazon. They did order it review its severe weather policies. 

CNBC said that after the fatal tornado, Amazon hired a meteorologist, created new emergency badge cards informing workers of evacuation points and assembly areas, and launched an internal center for monitoring and communication severe weather.

The lawmakers who wrote to Amazon are still dissatisfied. 

"Amazon's apparent unwillingness to invest in a storm shelter or safe room at its Edwardsville facility is made even worse concerning by the fact that installing one could be done by Amazon at relatively low cost," they wrote. 

Generally speaking, states and the federal government don't require special tornado safety rooms in warehouses.

Still, the December, 2021 tornado deaths at the Amazon warehouse are prompting renewed interest in storm safety in this type of building. 

A task force in Illinois is about to start work on recommendations for these facilities, according to St. Louis Public Radio. 

"The fact that we had such a tragic result makes me wonder if we don't need to look at those building codes and see that maybe Illinois needs to go above and beyond what's already expected," said Illinois State Rep. Katie Stuart, D-Edwardsville, as STLPR reports.

Stuart will be among those sitting on the task force, which is due to issue its final report by January 1, 2025.

Amazon is facing lawsuits over the tornado deaths in the Edwardsville warehouse. That structure is currently being rebuilt.