“April is the cruelest month,” wrote T.S. Eliot in “The Wasteland.” When it comes to Mississippi tornadoes though, April indeed tops the cruelty matrix, but November runs a close second.
Over the past 60 years, Mississippi has been struck by 274 April tornadoes and 226 November tornadoes. Eighteen confirmed tornadoes swept through the state last November. Over the past three decades, Mississippi has averaged 38 tornadoes and three deaths per year. So far this year, 94 tornadoes have ravaged Mississippi, causing 37 deaths and making 2011 one for the record books.
Gov. Haley Barbour set aside Oct. 24-28 as Tornado Awareness Week this year, but it was a warning that needed no reminder for three local school principals, all of whom have seen their campuses destroyed by devastating storms over the past decade.
As the tornado sirens blared Wednesday morning, Caledonia Middle School Principal Karen Pittman couldn’t help but remember the afternoon it was not a drill.
It was Jan. 8, 2008, and the weather had been capricious, foreboding, all day. Around 1:30 p.m., Pittman received a call from the Columbus Air Force Base — a tornado was on the ground, and it was headed straight for the school. Across campus, at Caledonia High School, Principal Randy Barnett, who was assistant principal at that time, received a similar phone call.
Barnett and Pittman gathered their students in the hallway and prayed for the best. When the storm passed, they walked outside to a changed world and an unforgettable lesson: The weather can change without warning, and you can never be too prepared.
Stokes-Beard Elementary Principal Pamela Lenoir carries her own memories — the violent storm system that destroyed her school on Nov. 10, 2001.
It was Sunday night, and she was at home when devastating straight line winds struck, damaging her school and parts of the Mississippi University for Women campus. As soon as it was daylight, Lenoir rushed to Stokes-Beard. The school was heavily damaged.
When the April 27 tornadoes skirted Columbus, leaving a path of death and destruction in nearby Smithville and Tuscaloosa, Ala., it was personal for Lenoir and her staff. Every tornado outbreak, every tornado drill, is personal.
“It raises awareness, once you’ve been involved in something like that,” Lenoir said Wednesday.
In an effort to make students take the drills more seriously, she eliminates the word “drill” when she makes the announcement over the school intercom, trying to make it as realistic as possible for her 515 students.
“There is a tornado; there is a tornado; there is a tornado,” she announces, and immediately, her staff springs into action, shepherding the students to their designated safe places.
“I think practice is the key, because we need to make sure everybody knows and is aware of what they’re supposed to be doing,” Lenoir said.
At Caledonia High School, Barnett follows the same procedure.
“Every time you have a drill, you think about it,” he said. “We have monthly tornado drills, and it’s not always something you like to do, but … because we had been pretty diligent about doing that, the young people didn’t hesitate.”
Once you’ve lived through a twister, it changes you forever, said Pittman.
She grew up on the Gulf Coast, in Mobile, Ala. She was accustomed to coping with hurricanes, not the swift, absolute, almost random destruction of tornadoes.
The thing she remembers most is how dark it was after the storm had passed. No one was injured, and the building she was in seemed fine, but she had no idea what lay beyond the school walls. With the electricity out, everything took on an added dimension of terror. Once emergency workers arrived, they had a hard time distinguishing school staff from parents, community members and first responders.
The experience led to changes at Caledonia Middle School.
Now they have emergency lighting in the hallways, so that even if there is a power outage, they will be able to see. There are dozens of flashlights scattered around the school. Pittman had a television installed in her office so she can monitor the weather. And every school administrator has a bright, neon yellow parka and cap to wear during emergency situations.
Before the tornado, Pittman had scoured the school’s emergency handbook many times. After the tornado, she realized: When disaster strikes, there is no time to refer to the handbook. Every action, every procedure, must be so ingrained that the staff and students react automatically.
The monthly tornado drills have taken on a new meaning.
“Even the students respond differently,” Pittman said. “(The 2008 tornado) put into perspective that it can happen. … We were very lucky and blessed.”
She encouraged people to take storm warnings seriously and establish a safety plan now, before the fall tornado season gets underway.
“Until you’ve lived (through) it, you just don’t have any idea,” Pittman said. “Pay attention to the weather. Know where your people are and what your plan is.”
Carmen K. Sisson is the former news editor at The Dispatch.
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