Tornado Reality Check: An Emergency Manager's Personal Experience and Preparedness Insights

Many of you know that I have been in the emergency management business for a long time, since 1999 to be exact. I have responded to countless disasters of many different types, spent more hours than I have spent sleeping in some version of an emergency operation center or another and even have had to use my life safety training, such as CPR, on more than one occasion. I would say that emergency response is part of who I am, even my initials are AED. However, though I have been in this field for half my life, I have always been the helper, NOT the one needing help.

This last weekend, tornadoes ripped through the American Heartland. At 1:26 a.m., an emergency alert from the National Weather Service blasted through my cell phone, stating that a tornado warning had been issued for my area.

• A “watch” means there are all the ingredients for a storm, but nothing has formed yet; a “warning” means there is a tornado, so get someplace safe.

Groggy from being jolted awake, I slipped on some tennis shoes that were next to my bed.

• A trick I learned living in earthquake territory for years; shoes under the bed help prevent a Die Hard- like moment of running on glass…

My husband grabbed the dog, I grabbed the cat, and we headed to our basement, where we hunkered down in an internal closet, wearing our bike helmets to protect us from any potential falling debris. I could feel the storm as it passed; the air got heavy, and I could hear our large oak trees being ripped apart like twigs. The power went out, but we had an emergency generator hardwired to our electrical system, so it automatically switched on. Internet and cell service were lost.

• I immediately got irritated with myself because my three battery-operated weather radios and my HAM radio were in the GARAGE! So not helpful.

My husband, animals and I all stayed in a 20-square-foot space for about an hour to ensure the storm had passed. We leave the room and head upstairs; we see no direct damage, and since it’s the middle of the night, we decide to try to sleep for a few hours. I remember finally falling asleep an hour later and waking up to what looked to be a beautiful morning.

The memory of the tornado faded for a moment, but then I heard the generator's hum in the background and remembered. I headed outside to our back deck to see the yard. Several trees had been completely ripped out of the ground, and our tree house ripped off the tree it was built on and tossed down our ravine. Our front yard was in a similar shape, with several trees blocking our driveway. Our neighbors were already out using their chainsaws to clear a path for us. Looking down the street, the devastation seemed surreal, like a disaster movie, trees collapsed on several roofs and cars, and trees and powerlines down everywhere.

It’s been six days since the storm. We still don’t have power or internet, but I feel fortunate. So many of my neighbors have suffered severe damage, and there are many with no home to return to. I am the chair of the local American Red Cross board, so I am trying to support those impacted as best I can.

I learned a lot from this experience; it validated many of my personal preparedness efforts. However, having done this for a long time, my ego needed to be checked a bit.

Here is my assessment of how I did with personal preparedness and my lessons learned.

Home:

• Have Emergency Supplies and Check Them Quarterly: I was good with basic emergency preparedness- extra food, water, cash, copies of important documents, and every supply or tool you can imagine. However, I didn’t have them in locations that I could use when needed (e.g. radios were in the garage) and, to be honest; I couldn’t tell you the last time I checked those radios; judging by the amount of battery corrosion on them, it had been a very long time.

  • Recommendation: check your supplies every quarter, making sure you know where they are and that they are items you will actually use. For example, I have asthma, and I had stashed an asthma inhaler in my “go kit” that expired in 2005! Really! And I call myself an emergency manager. I am rolling my eyes at myself.

    • Also, I have five cases of Coast Guard MREs in my garage. I have been without power for six days. I have yet to open one of those cases, and I probably won’t. Have food on hand that you will actually eat. And look, it’s a crisis; all I want is liquor and chocolates!

• Learn to Use Your Tools: speaking of supplies, I own a chainsaw, which is very helpful for chopping up trees and such. However, it's worthless if it doesn’t have fuel or if I HAVE NEVER USED ONE BEFORE!

  •   Recommendation: learn to use all emergency tools that you have BEFORE you need them!

Work:

• Have a Back-Up for Your Back-Up: I work from home the majority of the time, so it’s obviously hard to work when you have no power or internet. But that’s OK; I had a backup location, a co-working space in town. Oh wait, it was impacted by the storm, too. Yikes, what do you do when your redundancy is gone?

  • Recommendation: Have a backup for your backup. I know it's exhausting, but if you have a tertiary resource in your back pocket, it will save you a lot of heartache on the back end.

• Establish Team Check-in Protocol: the majority of my team lives in the same area as me, and we were all impacted. Once the storm passed, our head of security made a team roll call to make sure everyone was okay. Even though it was 2 a.m., we all chimed in to let each other know we were safe, and I posted a note on our group Slack channel so our out-of-state colleagues knew we were safe, too.

  • Recommendation: go old school, have a wallet card of important phone numbers written down and protocol in place for folks to check in if phone service is impacted. Text chat groups are good; social media groups are also a good tool.

• Know Your Critical Functions and Have Backup Plans in Place: my team is pretty adept at leaning in on each other’s projects, but we had been running thin for several weeks, so when the storm hit, we were at a big deficit to get ourselves on track as far as priorities.

  • Recommendation: designate team backups that are in different locations and ensure all have access to files, virtual meeting logins, etc.

 Moving Forward

I give myself a B for this crisis. I need to follow the advice my team and I give to our clients on a daily basis:

• You cannot take care of others if you don’t take care of yourself first;

• It's hard not to have crisis fatigue after everything society has been through in the 2020s, but we must be vigilant in our efforts to ensure we, our families, our businesses, and our communities know what to do when the bad day comes our way; and

• Help others in need if you can, and accept help if you need it.

After being through a tornado, I can honestly say I still find them terrifying, but I am thankful for the gift I have been given to learn from my mistakes and continue to help others.