Safe at school: Severe weather prompts better storm shelters

DAYTON, Ohio ( WDTN ) — It’s severe weather season, and tornado warnings can go off at anytime, even when your kids are at school.

When adults were in school, there wasn’t always a basement — students would crouch down, with their hands covering their heads. But now, a number of schools have become some of the safest places, with heavy duty storm shelters.

2 NEWS walked through buildings in the Fairborn School District to learn more about these new storm shelters and how they’re keeping kids safe at school.

Once a month, students in Fairborn schools run through a classic tornado drill — but instead of lining the hallways, hundreds of students make their way to the gym.

“In the past, school buildings weren’t built with an eye for protection,” said Betsy Wyatt, principal at Fairborn Intermediate

That changed in 2019, when a new state law required all schools that opened after September 2019 to have storm shelters.

Construction on Fairborn’s primary school began that spring, making it one of the largest tornado shelters in Ohio.

“This storm shelter can withstand 250 mile an hour winds, so that is a huge bonus for us,” said Jill Bennett, principal of Fairborn Primary School. “We can fit all of our 1400 students and 200 staff members.”

The walls are also three times thicker than a normal gym, and the roof has a concrete decking to prevent uplift from winds. Even the vents are specially designed to release pressure and prevent the building from collapsing.

“Last year we had to evacuate the buses due to a really heavy storm, and we brought everybody in,” said Bennett.

Fairborn Intermediate and the new High School — which is still under construction — are also equipped with new storm shelters.

But despite the drills and the concrete walls, Greene County school leaders decided to cancel school ahead of severe weather. They say they wanted to avoid having kids waiting at bus stops or walking home from school when storms hit.

Greene County superintendents knew many parents wouldn’t send their kids at all.

“I think when they made that call to take the calamity day — it was just out an abundance of caution and not of fear, knowing that over a third of our kids would’ve been staying home,” said Wyatt.

But days like that are not the norm, and school leaders acknowledge the storm shelters offer more protect than anywhere else, giving them the confidence to reassure worried parents.

“For example, if a mom is nervous and wants to say, ‘we’re having storms I’m going to come pick up so-and-so’ or ‘I’m going to keep them out for the day’ — we’ll encourage her and say ‘Our facility is safer than anywhere, than home.’ It’s safer than my home,” said Wyatt.

While Fairborn schools have never been in the direct path of a tornado, they know their buildings are safer now than they were just a few years ago.

A comfort for parents, students and staff, who have seen what Mother Nature can do.

“I grew up in tornado alley in Nebraska, and I have seen tornadoes, I’ve been through them,” said Wyatt. “I worked in Xenia, where the respect and fear of that weather is real. And the devastation done right after the kids were gone was unbelievable, and I never want to experience that again.”

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