During the week of April 28, 2014, there were a rash of tornado’s that cut swathes of destruction through several communities and took the lives of some 35 individuals. We continue to see more and more tornado shelters/safe rooms being constructed throughout the US. Many of those are private residential shelters/safe rooms but many are also community shelters, some are open to the public and some are not.
This latest round of tornadoes exposed many “chinks in the armor” regarding the operation plan and management of shelters/safe rooms that are open to the public. There are stories out there where shelters/safe rooms were supposed to be opened and were not, or members of the community could not find the shelter/safe room or did not know where the
entry to the shelter/safe room was located. These problems expose a lack of planning and a complete lack of understanding the extreme importance of managing public shelters/safe rooms regardless of the intent.
It is truly fortunate that none of the individuals that were unable to access or locate the shelter/safe room were killed. Tornadic events are NOT the time to work out the kinks in a shelter/safe room operations plan. These are peoples’ lives that were are dealing with and the general public does not want to be a guinea pig when it comes to the use of public shelters.
Opening a tornado shelter/safe room is to the public is admirable and at the same time a huge responsibility. In subsequent blogs, we will explore some of the issues to consider in a shelter/safe room operations plan.