May will mark two years since more than four tornadoes struck Benton County and the surrounding area in one night, causing widespread damage. As a way of looking back and preparing for the future, Ozarks at Large's Jack Travis offers this report, which tracks natural disaster response — such as to a tornado — from the local to the national level.
To quote the Department of Homeland Security: "Disaster can strike at any time and in any place, building slowly, or occurring suddenly without warning."
When you and your loved ones are caught in a disaster, you're probably not thinking about anything besides survival. For that reason, municipal, county, state and federal officials work around the clock to ensure necessary resources get to where people need them. And as spring gets underway, storms are more likely to appear.
Ashley Lunningham is the public information officer at the Arkansas Division of Emergency Management. She says that weather can be tame during late winter, but as we saw with storms that destroyed mobile homes in southwest Arkansas on March 7 and below-freezing temperatures this week, the sky is unpredictable, and the folks at ADEM aren't taking time off.
"We use the downtime that we have when we're not dealing with intense severe weather or snowstorms or things like that to make sure that we're ready for those disasters that could possibly happen. And especially this time of year, we're always cautious. We're always watching to make sure that we don't miss anything. We're in constant communication with our partners at the National Weather Service and all of our other state agencies as well. Everybody knows that if you live in Arkansas, this is the time of year that could get a little crazy for us. So we're always keeping a vigilant eye on the sky and making sure that we stay prepared so that if a community is impacted with one of the weather systems that comes in, we're ready to help them in whatever way we can."
The Division of Emergency Management is a coordinating agency. They communicate with state and county agencies and the National Weather Service. The NWS Tulsa office oversees KUAF's listening area, and Lunningham says they're the first point of contact when severe weather appears in the forecast.
"We start having coordination calls with all of our local emergency management officers and with state agencies and private partners, and we kind of get on the same page about: should we activate, should we start pulling in resources?"
For example, when record amounts of ice and snow were projected in January, ADEM got to work immediately.
"We called in ARDOT, started treating the roads and things like that. It's kind of based on every different storm system — it's not always one size fits all. So we just kind of go from what we're seeing, what the National Weather Service is providing us, and if we do decide to activate, we staff the SEOC, which is behind me. We're here to answer the call from local emergency officers that are out on the ground — they're seeing the damage, if anything comes in — and we kind of coordinate and see what kind of resources they need. We take the damage assessments and we kind of go from there."
And those people on the ground usually include first responders from cities. However, there's another level of management between the state and cities: the counties.
"Certainly, if a tornado touches down, as quickly as safely possible, we'll dispatch — and I say we, the dispatch centers will dispatch first responders to the area to assess any potential rescue that may need to be made."
That's Washington County Emergency Manager John Luther.
"In the case of a tornado, where you have structural damage, any collapse or entrapment that might have occurred, we assess the damage to see how many additional resources the immediate jurisdiction may need for mutual aid, and just try to work through the path of the tornado to care for everyone that was affected — with our partners in EMS, fire, law enforcement — and just make certain that the scene is as safe as possible."
The National Weather Service Tulsa office communicates with Luther in advance to ensure he can alert local schools, hospitals and public utility companies to prepare for the worst-case scenario. If the situation escalates, the federal government often steps in to provide support.
"When we look back at the 2009 ice storm, FEMA provided generator sets for buildings that we considered critical infrastructure. They brought those generators in, they trucked those in ahead of that particular storm, and those were able to be put into place to power various places when power was lost because of the damage to the grid — power lines being torn down because of trees falling and limbs falling and ice. In that particular case, they provided generators. And then after the storm, where people didn't have the ability to pump their wells because they had no electricity, they helped us with the provision of water and MREs. And then resources came even later than that, where federal aid was made available to our public in certain forms, and small businesses were able to meet with federal representatives for low-cost loans."
Washington County got a new asset for emergency management last year. In September, the agency cut the ribbon on its new command center. With this state-of-the-art facility, Luther says his crews will be able to reduce reaction time and step up mitigation efforts.
The building might look like another city government office, but inside it offers space for training and for officials to gather during an emergency as a base of operations. Washington County's two largest cities — Fayetteville and Springdale — have emergency manager offices in the new center. It also has a cargo bay for supply drops and for deploying an ATV for urban search-and-rescue projects. The site also has showers, a locker room and a kitchen for 24-hour emergency scenarios. And most of the facility is encased in reinforced concrete, capable of withstanding tornadoes.
The county is very blessed. We're very thankful. Whether we're here or not, at some point in time we'll retire and others will come in, but it gives them a place to do the emergency management work. It gives them a place to get the elected officials and decision makers together. And the hardened facility gives them a place that they can work — and our other response community can work — during severe weather. So it's just really a blessing for our county to have this.
He mentions the training space as an unexpected benefit.
"We've already had some classes from within the county, from the state and from the feds that have been held here now, because we have the space."
And as tornado season approaches, the new center could become a vital point of communication for those sheltering in place during a severe storm. In such situations, Luther emphasizes maintaining a reliable means of receiving alerts.
"Probably the most important time is when people are sleeping. Weather can come — whether it be floodwaters near areas that are prone to flooding — we have flash flooding in the same time of the year when we have tornadoes. We have severe thunderstorms that bring a lot of rain, and certainly tornadoes at the same time. And so what we want people to do is, if they're in a situation where they can't be aware personally of the outside conditions — whether they're asleep, or they're in a building where they don't have a good way to see what's going on outside — pay attention to it."
He also suggests creating an emergency prep kit and including multiple forms of communication.
" Whether it be a weather radio that monitors the emergency alerts for the National Weather Service, whether it's a local news outlet that provides weather warnings — we encourage people to have multiple ways to receive those warnings. I'm not really worried about a freeze warning or high wind warning or some of the various warnings that are out there, but I do want to know about tornado warnings and flash floods and severe thunderstorms. If we're made aware of those, they'll really keep us safe and help us."
