This is the time of the year that we are extra-aware and concerned about tornadoes and other severe weather. As everyone knows, Huntsville has faced extreme and often tragic weather situations in the past.
With each of those, we have learned lessons that we have been able to apply to future situations. A case in point: The extreme weather threat we faced on Monday, March 19.
The fact Huntsville was not hit with the worst of the storm was a blessing. But it also prompted the usual Monday-morning quarterbacking. People second-guessed the decisions by the school systems to dismiss early, our decision as the City of Huntsville to close City Hall in mid-afternoon and the decisions of businesses to close early.
However, we will continue to err on the side of caution. The risk of having students in transit as a violent storm strikes is not a risk we’re willing to take. The same with our City employees. Those decisions are not made lightly. They are made with the most up-to-date data available at the time and they’re made with lessons learned from the past in mind.
I spent much of that Monday at the Emergency Operations Center at the Huntsville-Madison Count Emergency Management Association. If I wasn’t in the command center, I was in near-constant contact, being kept apprised of developments.
The EOC, in the basement of the Engineering Building on Fountain Circle, is a sophisticated command center in which weather patterns are monitored second-by-second. It is a communication hub that links first-responders from all over north Alabama so they can be proactive and reactive. There is contact with other key agencies – Redstone Arsenal, school systems, hospitals, the airport – that would be especially impacted by a severe weather emergency.
It is not a spur-of-the-moment activity. Dozens of trained professionals, whose primary focus is the safety of the citizens, are well-rehearsed and prepared for such events.
For instance, the EMA hosts “table-top exercises” in which first-responders from the area and representatives from those key agencies convene and run through mock scenarios. They determine the best practices, the best methods in which they can be prepared and the immediate steps afterward.
But Lt. Charles Brooks, who heads up the Special Operations Division of the Huntsville Police Department, summed it all up perfectly last year:
“You can practice those things but you don’t know how it’s going to work until it actually happens,” Brooks says. “(Tornadoes) are all so unpredictable. You can prepare all day but until you actually get game-time experience, like the football analogy. The speed of the game. But the training kicks in, especially for what we do.”
On March 19, the worst of the violent weather avoided us. It struck to our immediate north and to the south. Our friends in surrounding communities weren’t as fortunate as we were, and our hearts go out to them. Many people are going to be in recovery mode for weeks and months, and we need to be aware of what we can do for them as individuals, businesses and governments.
The next severe storm, we might not be as fortunate.
That’s why we’ll always be vigilant, we’ll make decisions that emphasize caution and safety and we’ll be as trained and prepared as we possibly can be to face the challenges that might arise.
As always, we welcome your thoughts and comments at contact@HuntsvilleAL.gov or by calling 256-427-5000.
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