Unless you were living under a rock for the past couple of weeks, there’s been a bit of severe weather here at A-State. And because of this year’s tornado season, Arkansas State University needs to better its emergency preparedness, particularly informing students where the severe weather shelter areas are located on campus.
Up until maybe a day before the first tornado warning on March 14, I had no clue where to go in case of a tornado. I luckily had checked my email the day before from our residence education coordinator at the North Park Quads and Red Wolf Den regarding the incoming storm and saw a link that listed good shelter options across campus. From there I found my nearest tornado shelter which was the Carl Reng Student Union. However, I live in Red Wolf Den, so that’s quite a hike for me, but regardless, I would not have even known where to go if I didn’t check my email that day.
There wasn’t a text message telling me where to go and there wasn’t anyone going around showing students where to safely evacuate to these shelters. When the sirens went off, the situation became simply a “good luck everybody else!” scenario.
The emergency preparedness at A-State is a problem that is just waiting to get worse – but there are still ways that this can be fixed.
The first and most important fix is that we need more awareness of where to go if a natural disaster strikes.
When those sirens went off and I ran outside, I was greeted by a large group of A-State students that also did not know where to go. You know you did not prepare students adequately enough for an emergency when they’re asking someone like me what to do.
If there had been some sort of better announcement on where to go or maybe signs around campus telling us what areas on campus are safe in a tornado, that would have been incredibly useful during these times of panic. Imagine if that tornado had been bearing down on A-State whilst everyone was running around the North Park Quads parking lot like chickens with their heads cut off.
That could have been disastrous.
Students need to know where to go during these natural disasters and it’s the school’s job to let them know. A lone email will not cut it.
Another fix to this lack of preparedness is to make more tornado shelters readily available to students.
There are multiple areas of student housing, such as Red Wolf Den and the Quads, that are not tornado-safe. The campus needs to make sure that more areas are closer to areas of campus housing that students can use to shelter from storms.
Finally, a personal fix that I would make (if money was no issue) would be to have a place to store animals separate from people in the shelter at the union.
When everyone was at the student union shelter, people took their dogs and cats with them too. And not just their animals, but all their animals’ waste as well. These animals riled up a lot of allergies and that could be a problem in the future.
If A-State will put in the work to make their students safe, the cost of the developments would weigh little against the lives it could save.
Categories: Opinion
If you paid attention to all the announcements during orientation and other messages that go out to students (I am an online student and know this) you would have and still should sign up for A-State Alerts. You would get text messages during tornados and other emergencies.
Here is what you need to do:
1. Log on to my.AState.
2. Click on “Emergency Alert Setup”
3. Enter up to 3 phone numbers
4. Hit Confirm
Stay safe ASU!!