Tornado Shelter in Disguise
David B. South
Published in the Dallas Morning News April 21, 2002, P.5J

Texas tornado season is here. If previous years are any indication, we can expect 125 twisters to touch down between now and early July in the Lone Star State.

Knowing that our state is at high risk for often deadly windstorms, what are we doing to protect ourselves and our most precious resource - our children?

I'd like to share what school officials in my Texas community have done because I think it can serve as a model for other districts across the state who want to provide a safe haven for students when violent weather strikes. In January, the Italy Independent School District , located about midway between Dallas and Waco, put the finishing touches on a 1,500-seat multipurpose center that is being used for everything from basketball games to theater performances. It replaces an aging gym that had long outlived its usefulness.

But more importantly, the new center was built in such a way that it can withstand even the fierce winds of a level 5 tornado.

The town's emergency personnel have the keys to the facility so they can open the doors to the public whenever the need arises.

In other words, Italy has done what I believe every school district in Texas should consider doing. It has built a community tornado shelter disguised as a gym. In this case, school officials opted for a steel-reinforced concrete building known as a Monolithic Dome because it was affordable and energy efficient while also meeting or exceeding the Federal Emergency Management Agency's criteria for structures that can provide "near-absolute protection" from tornadoes. But there are other types of disaster-resistant structures that can achieve the same goals.

This kind of initiative is not just for wealthy school districts. In fact, Italy is such a property-poor district that it qualified for financial assistance from the state, which funded 81 percent of the $2 million facility. The nearby Avalon Independent School District began construction on its own Monolithic Dome multipurpose facility last month, and it too is receiving state funding because of its small tax base.

Clearly, school districts cannot launch these types of major building projects simply because they want a community tornado shelter. But disaster protection should be high on the list of priorities whenever the need arises for a new school facility.

While it is rare for tornadoes to cause fatalities in schools, it has happened time and time again. Most traditional school buildings, with their free-span roofs, simply do not offer much resistance to the high winds that a twister spawns. There is no question that death of any child is tragic, but it is even worse when we know that it could have been prevented.

As a school board member and father of 10, I sleep better at night knowing that the children of my community have a safe haven during this tornado season and for many years to come. Don't all the children of Texas deserve the same?

David B. South lives in Italy, Texas and serves on the Italy School Board.