A tornado warning localized to a particular area of Flagler County on Thursday but broadcast countywide on cell phones left faculty members and volunteers at Indian Trails Middle School anxious and in the dark about the school’s lack of response as the storm raged outside, or any effort to voice explanations or reassurances over the PA system: what parents and others did learn from the district was not issued until two hours after the fact.
District officials were monitoring the storm and communicating with their schools in real time. Tornado protocols were enacted at Bunnell Elementary and Rymfire Elementary, but were not at Indian Trails, which was outside the danger zone. Indian Trails Middle School officials did not deem it necessary to pass on the information to faculty, students and others at the school.
Lindsey Simmonds has been volunteering at Indian Trails Middle School in preparation for her fifth-grade son’s promotion there next year. She wants to know what kind of school he’s in for. After the tornado watch was issued in the morning, she’d emailed her son’s teacher to find out about protocols in case it upgraded to a warning. She was told her son would remain in his “concretable,” a portable classroom anchored on campus.
As she volunteered at the ITMS media center on Thursday, she was unnerved by the school’s response to the tornado warning that had flashed on her phone: all went on as normal, and when she asked the school receptionist what was up, the receptionist’s response was rude and dismissive: We’re monitoring it. The administration knows best, she was told. (The reception desk at that school can veer from friendly to crabby, depending on who’s covering it.)
“We could hear the rumble and the thunder and then several of us have the alert system on our phones,” Simmonds said.
The severe thunderstorm warning came first. Then the tornado warning, around 12:43. The media specialist told her she’d also gotten the warning. Students were still streaming in, led by a teacher. In a warning that applies to a particular area–as this one did not–students go to a hallway. Simmonds and the faculty members wondered why that wasn’t happening.
“I just kept walking around and told my other friend who was volunteering there at the same time,” Simmonds said, “and she’s like, I’m communicating with my son, who’s at Belle Terre Elementary School right now.” That school is a few blocks north of the middle school. “He is in lockdown. My son’s in fifth grade at Belle Terre too. They’re all in lockdown. They’re all under their desks for the tornado and he’s freaked out.”
If the administration knew something the faculty and volunteers did not–which it apparently did–it was not telling anyone: the PA system was dead silent throughout, leaving everyone with their own anxieties. “I went to librarian and I said, why isn’t anyone seeking shelter? This was making me very concerned, like the National Weather Service says, you’re an imminent danger, go inside indoors and seek shelter,” Simmonds said. “And she’s like, I know, it’s making me really nervous too. It got really dark out in the greenhouse and you could hear like the wind picking up and the rain hitting the windows.”
Simmonds lives in the B Section. The October tornado that damaged several homes there passed near her house. “I guess I’m more cautious of it because of that going through quicker than I thought,” she said, “and we really get them. So I was concerned.”
In fact, there was a “downburst” in the F-Section that caused minor damage and an F-1 tornado at World Golf Village, 33 miles to the north. But the tornado warning was not for the B or F Sections of Palm Coast.
“On radar,” Lord said, “there was potentially some debris signatures, which you can’t always tell on radar, looked like in the Cody’s Corner or north of the Cody’s Corner area of the county,” at the intersection of State Route 11 and County Road 304 southwest of Bunnell. “But we did not get any reports from out there other than near St. John’s Park. We do know at least one tree or a couple of trees were knocked down. One of them was in the roadway that eventually got that cleared out.”
There are different ways to get alerts, Lord said. The National Emergency Alert System that may buzz through phones “doesn’t give you a lot of detail where it is,” and may blanket a larger area than that of the actual warning zone, as was the case for some who got that alert on Thursday. That same alert buzzed in Bunnell. Unlike the AlertFlagler system, that’s not based on specific addresses. In that sense, the AlertFlagler system–a free service accessible by cell phone, text, email–is superior. It can be as precise as issuing a warning to one side of a street but not another, Lord said. AlertFlagler issued a severe thunderstorm warning for the Indian Trails area, but no tornado warning.
Generally speaking, the more severe cells of the storm stretched from the Pearson area of Volusia County to Cody’s Corner to the center of Bunnell, then to the F-Section and out to the ocean, Lord said. “The good thing with this storm as we were watching it live, is it spread out as it went over Flagler County, meaning the high winds and the tornado signature wasn’t as well defined as it was when they first saw it over in Volusia County,” he said.
That’s why, without a more specified warning, Indian Trails Middle School did not react, though that doesn’t explain why the administration, which liberally uses the PA system for many frivolous announcements, did not feel the need to make any announcement during the storm.
Superintendent LaShakia Moore and Indian Trails Principal Ryan Andrews did not respond to repeated emails. (Simmonds saw Andrews walk into the school in what she described as “active wear” after the storm, as she was leaving, so she’s not sure he was there during the storm. But that may explain the failure of assertive communication at the school.)
But Tommy Wooleyhan, the district’s safety specialist, explained how the district prepared for the storm–an explanation that tracked closely with Lord’s.
“Following established safety procedures, I immediately initiated communication with all principals in potentially affected areas early in the morning. This included ITMS, alongside other schools within the warning zone such as BES and RES,” Wooleyhan said in an email, referring to Rymfire Elementary in Palm Coast, and Bunnell Elementary.
“As part of our proactive approach to emergency management, we ensured that each school was vigilant in monitoring the situation and prepared to enact Standard Response Protocol changes as necessary,” he said. “Additionally, schools were directed to activate their Emergency Management Plans (EMPs) to ensure readiness for any escalation of the weather event.” That’s when enacting safety procedures for students would have been implemented.
“However,” he said, “it’s important to note that decision-making during such events is dynamic and based on real-time assessments of the situation, including factors such as the trajectory and severity of the weather system, proximity to the school, etc. In this instance, the tornado warning did not encompass ITMS directly, and after careful evaluation by our safety team in conjunction with local authorities, it was determined that the most appropriate course of action was to remain vigilant and prepared while closely monitoring developments.”
At 2:35 p.m. Thursday, well after school has dismissed, Don Foley, the district’s chief spokesman, issued an email to parents explaining slight delays in afternoon bus schedules and providing some of the explanations Wooleyhan did. “As a precautionary measure, our schools which were in that warning area relocated all students and staff to interior areas, due to potential risks associated with the tornado warning. The warning expired at 1:15 PM,” Foley wrote.
