The problem with the tornadoes that hit Oklahoma and other parts of the Midwest in May was not necessarily a lack of mass notification. It was, according to reports, a lack of time, due to the nature of the storm. Residents of Moore had about 36 minutes to prepare for a mile-wide tornado that flattened the Oklahoma City suburb, killing two dozen people, according to the National Weather Service. The federal agency issued its first warning for residents to seek shelter at 2:40 p.m. local time on May 20, 16 minutes before the tornado touched down about 10 miles (16 kilometers) west of the city, said David Andra, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Norman, Oklahoma. The twister reached Moore at 3:16 p.m., he said, topping the service’s scale for tornadoes with winds of more than 200 miles per hour. “The average lead time for tornado warnings is 14 minutes, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. So when the tornadoes struck, mass notification systems were in place.
All of which make effective mass notification systems in K-12 schools more important. The systems can include alerting students for active shooters, natural disasters, school closings and unfortunately, EF5 tornadoes.