Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Strong weather raises alarm
Students in residence halls told to take shelter in basements
Article by:
Linda Alberty - Reporter
· lalberty@northernstar.info
Students in all residence halls except Grant Towers were told to seek
shelter during Tuesday evening’s tornado warning, hall directors
said.
Student Housing and Dining procedures state that during a tornado
warning, residents should be moved by the residential live staff to
the safety of a basement.
As of press time, Grant Towers Hall Director Kelly Jordan declined
to say why she did not order residents to take cover. Grant Towers
is home to about 2,500 students.
The storm system was tracked southeast of DeKalb, the National Weather
Service reported. No damage was reported to the DeKalb County Sheriff’s
office.
Front desk personnel at Grant Towers received a call to disregard
the warnings after the sirens subsided, said John Zmuda, who worked
one of the towers’ front desks on Tuesday. By that point, other
halls had already moved students to tornado shelters.
At about 5:45 p.m., tornado sirens echoed through the city as the
National Weather Service issued alerts that funnel clouds were in
the DeKalb County area.
Some students in the Grant Hall cafeteria were told to go to the
basement, said freshman history major Erin Neary, but she said few
people went to the shelter.
Freshman undeclared major Kelly Klein was also in the cafeteria when
students were told to leave.
“There was a group of us down there and we waited a couple of
minutes and left,” Klein said.
Kunal Gondalia, a junior finance major and residence hall operations
staff member, said he heard the tornado warning over his radio and
paged Douglas Hall Director Nitin Goil.
Before Goil could respond, Gondalia received instructions from Lincoln
Hall Director Rhonda Hutter to take shelter, he said.
Kara Jenski, supervisor of Lincoln and Douglas halls, said getting
the residents to tornado shelters was easy.
Actions in her halls was facilitated by clear communication between
all authoritative figures, she said.
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