It’s that time of year again. The seasons are shifting and the air is cooling as students are strapping in for final leg of the semester. With the change in seasons, some students and faculty alike are concerned with how to get their information when severe weather strikes.
UTM has an emergency text messaging system available for students, faculty, staff and others who want to be updated about severe weather and other emergencies that may have an effect on UTM.
Several students signed up for the service were concerned when tornadoes traveled through Northwest Tenn. on Oct. 5, which was a day filled with many Homecoming events.
Around 7 p.m. Oct. 5 a tornado warning was issued for Dyer country for severe weather that was quickly heading towards Obion and western Weakly county. Tornadoes had been spotted in the midst of the storm.
“A tornado WARNING has been issued for Obion County and western Weakley County effective until 8:00 pm. Seek shelter immediately,” the emergency text said.
An alert through the system wasn’t sent out until 7:29 p.m., which concerned many students since severe weather was already in the immediate area. Doug Sliger, the Emergency Management Coordinator and Safety Specialist for UTM, felt as though the sirens for the Martin area were more of a precaution.
“For severe weather one thing empathized during our FYI Training is to encourage students to opt into our emergency text messaging system, and that way they can receive a text message that either myself, the director of public safety, or the assistant director will send out a text message notifying those people that there is a tornado warning,” Sliger said.
“I had been watching on the cell phone. It was a real small storm and it looked like it was going to miss us to the west, which it did. But it was little to close for comfort,” Sliger said.
While the City of Martin issued their alerts through the sirens on campus at the same time as Dyer County warning, Sliger assures students that it was probably an extra way to give UTM students and faculty some extra time to seek shelter.
“The City of Martin might have heard it was was coming this way and tried to give us some extra time…it was coming, just a few minutes after it was announced on the weather radio I got on through the RAVE,” Sliger said.
Sliger also complemented students on how well they responded to the surprise warning, especially in the Elam Center where they were holding the NPHC Step Show competition.
“I heard from several people that they had people in the safer areas within three or five minutes. In six minutes, everybody was there and in three minutes 95 percent of the people were there in the safer areas,” Sliger said.
Ultimately the emergency text messaging system is there to help the students stay safe.
When a tornado for the Martin area has been spotted by a storm spotter or by the National Weather Service, Public Safety has one of the dispatchers send out a text message through their system that will reach everyone who has opted into it. All of this can happen within minutes of the initial warning being sent out.
“We access it by computer…. it notifies everybody that has opted into it, and right now there’s about 8,000 text messages that it sends within just two or three minutes,” Sliger said.
Other methods that Public Safety uses to get their information sent out to other departments and building managers about severe weather include weather radios.
“We bought three or more of them on campus and distributed them, especially to housing and other building managers and also our dispatcher, who heard it immediately,” Sliger said.
Sliger recommends that students and faculty prepare by becoming familiar with the maps of the academic buildings that list designated shelter zones throughout campus for tornados, fires, and other emergency situations.
“You don’t want to be near any outside walls. Get to the basement or at the very least the lowest floor of the building,” Sliger said.
Maps are also oriented to the hallways to further help students find out where they are in relation to the shelter areas.
“They’re new. We’ve started them about a year ago, and few months ago we got them in the Fine Arts building when it was completed,” Sliger said.
Sliger further recommends that students invest in weather radios and tune into Weakley County, or look into available smartphone applications online to give them further notification of the approaching storms.
“You can get free apps on your cell phone and they will give you a warning signal within just a couple of minutes after the weather radio announces a tornado warning,” Sliger said.
“I think the quicker that you get any type of warning, and the sooner you get that word, the better. Not only should you opt into the text messaging system, but absolutely get that thing (application) on your cell-phone where you get the earliest kind of notification for a tornado warning,” Sliger said.
