Tornadoes lead to 'crazy start' to local school week

Mar. 2—CHAMPAIGN — Three twisters touching down in Champaign and Ford counties led to the sounds of heavy rain, hail, thunderclaps and blaring sirens descending across the area.

For local school districts, "it was just a crazy start to a Monday," Thomasboro Superintendent Bonnie McArthur said.

School officials reached Wednesday by The News-Gazette said the tornado response procedures all went according to plan, though many students in the area had to take cover twice in the same morning.

About 20 minutes into their day, Thomasboro Grade School students began funneling into the central hallway and locker rooms after staff cellphones broke out in a beeping chorus of loud tornado warning sirens.

After a half-hour of sheltering, school staff learned minutes later of a second tornado that had formed in the county, this time just five minutes southwest of their campus.

"They went as we practiced," McArthur said. Thomasboro does two annual tornado drills; Illinois requires one per year. "The kids did great — exactly as they were supposed to do."

The standard in-school tornado procedure hasn't changed much over time. If there's a siren, or enough warning signs, officials will corral students into the innermost parts of the school buildings, where there aren't any windows or risks of falling debris.

Children are told to get down on the ground, put their heads between their knees and cover their head and neck area with their hands until they get the all-clear.

"Students and our staff did an amazing job," Champaign Unit 4 Superintendent Shelia Boozer said at this week's school board meeting. "Some of them got soaked, but they kept doing it and taking care of our kids."

Boozer added that the district "has some things to take care of" regarding its safety plan when buildings are placed on lockdown after a couple reported issues Monday morning.

"What happened today — and I own it, and we own it — some buildings who went on lockdown didn't let people in, and that was not OK. But we took care of it, so we're going to go back and have some more conversations about weather emergencies, so our families know that they can come in and shelter in place right along with the staff and everyone in there," Boozer said at Monday night's meeting.

"It's something we were not used to doing, so we're going back to address that."

Rantoul City Schools also went through two relatively quick shelter-in-place procedures, though the sirens and sudden transitions from class weren't easy for some of the youngest students. Broadmeadow Elementary's new therapy dog, Cooper, helped give a few of them comfort.

"At our younger grade levels, I had reports of some upset kids and crying, but none of that from the upper elementary and junior high kids," said Superintendent Scott Woods. "It's very fortunate that nothing actually caused any damage or put any students in harm's way. I believe most of our schools have done their tornado drill already this year."

Rantoul schools use a safety phone app called NaviGate, which alerts students and staff when their building triggers a safety alarm.

The first twister touched down west of Champaign around 8:43 a.m. The second formed about 15 minutes later north of Urbana, dissipating around the median of Interstate 57 and Market Street. A third was reported east of the Paxton area.

Ludlow Grade School students and staff went into their safety protocol around 8:50 a.m. and were back in class by 9:30 a.m., Superintendent Jeff Graham said.

"Things went really well and flawlessly; both staff and students were patient as the storm passed and we went back to class," Graham said.

Heavy rain and thunder were interrupted by an "eerie calm" before the storm resumed again, Graham said.

"We don't have even 60 kids in our entire district — the three bathrooms we have in the interior of the building is sufficient for us, we're pretty fortunate," he said.

One school system that opted not to have students take cover was St. Joseph, east of the tornadoes' paths.

Without a siren in town nor a National Weather Service alert, they decided to stay put and let class proceed as normal.

"We had rain, we had lightning. Though our other indicators said there wasn't a tornado in our path, we wanted to get our own look, and it didn't show any type of funnel clouds," said Brian Brooks, superintendent of the St. Joseph-Ogden High School district.

"We try to gather as much information as we can; if there's doubts, we err on the side of caution."