As part of Tornado Alley, Illinois continues to see severe weather.
Safe Redbirds Emergency Management Director Eric Hodges said that there has been a significant increase in severe weather outbreaks recently.
“We’ve had the largest hail ever in Illinois. The one that hit Kankakee was 6-inch hail. We had the first-ever tornado recorded in Normal’s history just a couple weeks ago,” Hodges said.
“All of this happened in the same severe weather season. I’ve never seen anything quite like that before,” Hodges continued.
To determine whether classes should be canceled for severe weather, certain criteria must be met. Hodges said that these criteria change depending on the season.
“For winter weather, it’s a combination of wind chill, amount of snow that we received, the air temperature itself, the ability for grounds to clear the sidewalks or for public works to clear the streets,” Hodges said.
“For spring weather, we’ve only done it once in the history of the university. It was actually just a couple of years ago. It was a significantly bad, severe weather outlook day,” Hodges said.
Hodges gave tips on what students should do in severe weather.
“It’s really important to get to the lowest level of the buildings and to make sure you have a way to receive alerts,” Hodges said.
“Specifically for tornadoes, we want people to stay in those shelters until there’s an all-clear issue. It’s really important to stay there because those things take 20 to 30 minutes before they can work their way through,” Hodges continued.
Hodges said classrooms are equipped with their own emergency alert systems.
“If a faculty member is using the computer on the podium as opposed to their own, we have an application in those. What it will do is take over the screen, turn it bright yellow, and put the red text emergency alert up there,” Hodges said.
Hodges said the Safe Redbirds app does more than just give alerts. It can also teach students how to be safe in different situations.
“There are about 20 short video clips for all kinds of different threats and hazards. Severe weather is just one of them,” Hodges said.
Another aspect of Safe Redbirds is their ambassadors. Hodges said that they help make safety education more hands-on.
“[Safe Redbirds Ambassadors] are the student employees who will go out and do training on severe weather or any kind of threat or hazard,” Hodges said.
Hodges said that the ambassadors also provide educational activities that are fun for students.
“We have games related to emergency preparedness that make learning a bit more interesting,” Hodges said.
More information on Safe Redbirds Ambassadors can be found here.
EMMA WESTRAY is a news and features reporter. Westray can be reached at ejwestr@ilstu.edu.
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