Assessment of March 1, 2007 Tornadoes

Yesterday the National Weather Service (NWS) released its Service Assessment of the Tornadoes that struck Alabama and Georgia on March 1, 2007 (the same storms that struck Enterprise High School). The Assessment team was “tasked with documenting and evaluating the performance and overall effectiveness of NWS services and operational procedures for the event. In addition, the assessment team was tasked with examining 1) NWS operational and service aspects relating to how the Storm-Based Warnings approach would have affected any outcomes during this event; and 2) some of the societal impacts relating to this event, including tornado safety in residential homes, industrial plants, educational institutions, and other large facilities having the capacity to hold many people.”
From the Executive Summary:

“The safety actions of Enterprise High School during this event were a passionate topic of debate while the Team was conducting its interviews and gathering information. Some people indicated if the school had not been under Tornado Warnings for almost 3 hours (as a result, they sheltered in-place for nearly 3 hours), the school could have evacuated the buildings before the actual tornado hit. The Team was asked to evaluate if the Storm-Based Warnings approach could have improved public response by creating a shorter time that the high school was under a Tornado Warning. In most cases, Storm-Based Warnings will cause smaller areas to be under Tornado Warnings for shorter periods of time. However, in this case, three successive supercell thunderstorms moved over or near the Enterprise area during the 3 hour time period. As a result, the high school would have been under Tornado Warnings for approximately the same amount of time, even if the Storm-Based Warnings approach had been used. The Team believes that, given the ongoing danger from the successive supercell storms, the safety response of the school was the proper one and would have been the same whether County-Based or Storm-Based Warnings were used.”

The team released 6 recommendations, including the need for hardened safety rooms in large public facilities such as schools and office buildings.

weather

We’re smack in the middle of tornado season, and hurricane season begins in less than two months.  In case you don’t know where your local Alabama EMA (Emergency Management Agency) office is, there’s a contact list on their web site.

And NOAA is a great source of weather information - their Hurricanes Portal provides general information on hurricanes [including this year's storm names], in addition to emergency preparedness information.