Tornado season hit Oklahoma earlier than usual this year, causing many Oklahoma Christian University students to take shelter.
According to NewsOK, warnings were scattered across the state but separate tornadoes touched down in Moore and Sand Springs on March 25, leaving one person dead and injuring at least 20.
“It looked like it was just going to be a possibility of hail and all of the sudden the sirens are going off and here comes the tornado across Moore again,” Dean of Students Neil Arter said. “And I’m thinking ‘Moore is a long way away, but what else is back over here that’s coming?’ You’re not for sure.”
Arter is responsible for warning the students about all safety concerns on campus, including severe weather alerts.
“It’s always our goal to get everyone into a sheltered place before the weather hits,” Arter said. “I don’t want someone running across from the apartments to PEC or to DAH and a tornado would be approaching the campus. I want everyone inside.”
In Arter’s 25 years of working at Oklahoma Christian, he said he had to get students to safety from tornadoes only a few times.
“I feel fortunate that the busiest times for tornados in the state is in May through the first of June, when most students are gone,” Arter said. “But there have been some times in the last couple of years where I’ve had to send everyone into shelter.”
Arter said getting students, faulty and staff into shelter is more of a challenge compared to getting his family to safety.
“With my family at home I can get them into shelter like that, it doesn’t take long at all,” Arter said. “If you think about it, on campus, it’s over 1,600 who live on campus, plus all of the faculty and staff and other people that are guest on campus and things — so that’s kind of the challenge sometimes.”
Arter said difficulties occur on getting students to shelter based on where most people are located when the sirens go off.
“This last tornado siren that went off on Wednesday, a week ago, that one was hard too because people were all over campus,” Arter said. “I told the campus to go to shelter and there were people running into the bible building, they were running into the library. They’re taking shelter everywhere and that’s kind of a mess too.”
Arter said text and email alerts have made warning the students an easier task.
“What would we have done 25 years ago when we didn’t have text messaging and things,” Arter said. “I guess you just go door-to-door and start yelling and telling people to run and go to DAH or whatever, but I’m really thankful.”
First-year student Austin said he was excited to see the tornado because he is not used to this type of severe weather.
“I was kind of excited, I’ve never seen one before,” Jones said. “It’s more frequent down here, there are more precautions that are taken for tornados.”
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