I recently discovered your podcast, “Between the Headlines.” As someone who lived in Columbus for more than 25 years before leaving the state for graduate studies, the show has been a meaningful way to reconnect with the city that will always feel like home.

I appreciated your recent discussion of the Stokes-Beard Elementary gymnasium project and the cost of the redesigned plans. But I was troubled by the suggestion that the city might cut costs by exempting the building from wind-resistance requirements. Yes, the architects should have included those requirements in their original estimates, and a $3 million increase should not be taken lightly. Budget discipline matters, especially with public dollars. Still, when we’re talking about a high-occupancy school building in one of the most tornado-prone states in the country, we have to ask whether short-term savings are worth weakening structural resilience and public safety.

Because forecasting and warning systems have improved, many of us in the Deep South now hear about severe-weather potential days in advance. It’s understandable to wonder whether schools could simply close, as they do for snow. But the conditions that produce tornadoes are volatile, often developing rapidly with limited warning. Even in ideal circumstances, communities typically have only minutes to respond. And given how frequently Mississippi sees severe thunderstorms, closing schools whenever storms are possible would cause constant disruption to the academic calendar.

More importantly, schools should not send students home on severe-weather days when the safest place for many children may be the school itself. Poverty forces many Mississippi families into housing that offers little protection from violent winds. I grew up in mobile homes, and I know the anxiety that comes with that reality. Mobile homes are among the most vulnerable structures in tornadoes, a fact reflected in fatality statistics. From 1950 to 2022, Mississippi is, per capita, the deadliest state for tornadoes, surpassing states like Texas and Oklahoma that see more tornadoes overall.

I learned firsthand why strong school buildings matter on Jan. 10, 2008, when an EF3 tornado struck my school in Caledonia. Out of roughly 1,900 students and faculty, only three people suffered minor injuries — but that outcome depended on evacuating the gymnasium before the storm hit. Minutes after the last person escaped, the gym was destroyed.

That close call echoes an older Mississippi tragedy. In 1936, a powerful tornado tore through Tupelo, killing more than 200 and injuring nearly 1,000 — still the fourth-deadliest tornado in U.S. history. State geologist William Clifford Morse, surveying the wreckage, wrote of Tupelo City High School that “one shudders at the thought of how nearly complete annihilation would have been had these rooms been filled with pupils when the tornado struck.”

So is the proposed design worth the cost? I’ll leave you with Morse again: the choice is between “building at present prevailingly low costs” or “future slightly higher costs,” between “losing of friends and loved ones” or “saving of friends and loved ones.” Ninety years later, Mississippi communities still face that choice.

Trevor W. Cole

Athens, GA