Virginia Holds State Wide Tornado Drill
In March 2018, Virginia held a statewide tornado drill as part of its overall emergency preparedness efforts. This is refreshing, as I don’t hear about tornado drills very often, presumably because hurricanes get all the hype. But despite the relative rarity of these types of events, Virginia has experienced approximately 80 tornadoes in the past 6 years, causing multiple fatalities. Therefore, holding this type of drill makes sense.
What the VA Tornado Drill Entailed
Since a tornado drill is relatively uncommon, I think it’s an interesting concept to discuss. In Virginia’s case, the drill was not utility-specific, rather, it involved local communities. For example, in Fort Lee, VA, a U.S. Army post, the drill started with the deployment of an emergency alert email, in conjunction with an outdoor speaker system alert, which triggered emergency responders and residents to spring into action.
The Fort Lee drill coordinator had an interesting perspective regarding what the drill participants needed to focus on to optimize the learning experience:
- Learn what to look for in a weather report – for example, understand the difference between a tornado watch and warning. The best time to mobilize the response is before the watch turns into a warning.
- Learn the community’s warning channels – such as social media pages, outage maps, text alerts, etc.
- Learn as many nuances as possible, such as securing loose outdoor objects, handling the logistics of the tornado shelter, taking roll call, soothing panicked people, navigating to evacuation routes, etc.
Again, this is obviously a little different than utility exercises and drills, but I definitely think it’s interesting to peer into the inner workings of a community-based drill so we can gain insight into external stakeholder perspectives. And learning the details of a statewide tornado drill is certainly one way to gain this insight!
