A tornado touched down in Hattiesburg Sunday evening and swept through the University of Southern Mississippi campus, Ole Miss officials are raising awareness on campus of how to respond to emergency weather conditions.
Courtesy Ole Miss Communications
The University of Mississippi’s Crisis Action Team was formed in 2008 and is responsible for monitoring possible threats to the Ole Miss campus and students’ safety.
The most common concern, however, is weather.
Associate provost and team member Noel Wilkin said that campus may undergo 20 tornado watches during the course of the year.
This past week, the university sought to promote Severe Weather Awareness Week, which was declared by the Mississippi Emergency Management Association.
“The most important thing for people to understand is that we take our safety and the safety of our community very seriously,” Wilkin said.
“I hope all faculty, staff and students will also take their safety seriously and do what is necessary to learn how to respond to given emergencies on our campus.”
Political science senior Emilie Edmonds, a New Mexico native, said she has had to learn to prepare for severe weather in Oxford.
“It wasn’t until my junior year where we actually had a (possible) tornado, and I had to hide in the library that I learned of the proper safety procedures for a tornado,” Edmonds said.
In 2011, a storm cell passed over the Ole Miss campus that went on to strike Smithville and Tuscaloosa, Ala.
During the storm, several students complained of getting delayed, or in some cases, no text message alerts.
After realizing that everyone had not been reached, Wilkin said the university took a “no excuses” approach to ensure that students and faculty would be informed.
The university created an emergency website that constantly updates and now also sends out emails. Tweets and notifications to the Ole Miss mobile apps are also being used to communicate emergencies.
“We realized we needed a mechanism to communicate to people that may be out of earshot of the sirens,” Wilkin said.
“It’s also helpful to have a backup system in place to communicate on our campus.”
Wilkin said everyone on campus has a responsibility to know what to do in the case of an emergency.
“Just like you know what to do when a fire alarm goes off in a building, people should know what to do when a tornado watch occurs on our campus,” he said.
