When severe weather threatens, Iola residents have three designated storm shelters: Lincoln and McKinley elementary schools and the Bowlus Fine Arts Center.
Since the May 22 tornado that devastated Joplin, Iola’s City Hall has been peppered with questions about the city’s storm shelters, Police Chief Jared Warner said.
“That’s usually what happens after an event like Joplin,” Warner said, as public interest in tornado safety spikes.
The shelters are unlocked any time severe weather appears to be an imminent threat to Iola or Allen County, Warner said. That is, if the storms have a history of producing winds greater than 70 mph, or if an elevated risk of similar storms or tornadoes is forecast.
The easiest way to tell if the shelters are unlocked, Warner said, is by registering for Allen County’s CODE RED telephone alert system, because the city sends out a call to local subscribers when the shelters are unlocked. Residents may sign up for CODE RED alerts via the city’s website, www.cityof-iola.com, or via the Allen County Sheriff’s Department at allencounty.org/sheriff.html.
Each shelter is manned by a police officer while it is open to the public.
Warner and Iola City Administrator Judy Brigham noted that none of the city’s three designated shelters is considered 100 percent storm-proof, nor are any of them certified as such by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“But I would feel safer in any of those shelters than I would outside,” Brigham said.
Two old shelter locations are no longer used, City Hall and the post office. City Hall was taken off the list of shelters because it is no longer open 24 hours a day. Dispatch services were handed over to the county last year, meaning the police department and other city offices are open only during normal business hours.
Post office officials also decided against using that facility as a shelter due to liability concerns.
The new Iola City Council also took up the storm shelter discussion at its May 23 meeting and has further discussion planned with Pam Beasley, Allen County’s emergency management director, at its June 13 meeting.
One item discussed previously was whether to declare the New Community Building as a shelter.
Warner said it was not designated as such because it would take longer for some residents to reach the park than it would the other three shelters.
Secondly, for the park building to have been considered a FEMA-designated storm shelter, it would have had to be substantially bigger, Brigham said, “capable of holding roughly three-quarters of Iola’s population.” The building’s occupancy load is barely more than 100.
Still, Warner invited residents to attend the June 13 meeting if storm shelters were on their minds.
“It will be a great opportunity for the public to share its views or concerns,” Warner said.
BRIGHAM NOTED the increased interest in tornado responses coincided with the city’s recent upgrade of its storm siren system.
“Actually, our timing couldn’t have been better,” she said.
The new system features more sirens strategically placed around town, including three capable of providing verbal warnings for specific disasters, such as lightning or flood alerts, Warner said.
Unlike its predecessor, the new system also operates on a battery backup.
“We can still sound sirens even in a power outage,” Warner said. “We were out of luck if we lost power with the old system.”
The sirens are triggered if a tornado has been spotted by trained storm spotters or otherwise detected by the National Weather Service.
Warner noted that some personal responsibility is required for residents to decide if or when they should flee to a city storm shelter.
For example, Iolans would have had enough time to head to a shelter if the city had a 20-minute head start on a tornado’s arrival, such as the warning issued for Joplin. Other storms move much more rapidly, Warner acknowledged, and some could be caught en route outdoors in certain storms.
Warner noted that nearly 100 Iolans went to the three city shelters the evening of May 22, one day after the Joplin tornado, because severe storms were in the Iola area.
“It looked very much like we were going to get something, but the storms dissipated before they got here, or they split around us,” Warner said.
The shelters were unlocked but the storm sirens were not sounded, Warner said.
