Software malfunction cause of Joplin Schools emergency shelters not opening

Under normal circumstances, the emergency storm shelters at the area Joplin Schools are set to automatically open anytime the National Weather Service issues a tornado warning, or they can be remotely opened if the City of Joplin sounds the sirens for a high wind warning.

“We have a radio that’s set up at Joplin High School that’s attached to the entire district,” Joplin Assistant Superintendent of Operations Dr. Matt Harding told NewsTalk KZRG. “And if that goes to tornado warning, (the shelters) all open up automatically. We can also do them manually ourselves through that same process. However, typically, we don’t do that unless the city notifies us that they are going to sound the sirens. Or if we see a tornado producing storm that we think is going to be in a direct path for Joplin. And if that’s the case, usually we’re in pretty close communication with the city.”

Unfortunately, that was not the case this past weekend. 

There are 13 schools in the system that act as emergency shelters in case of a tornado warning or extremely high winds are reached in a severe storm. After the doors are set to open automatically, volunteers are enroute to assist the public or to manually open the doors if needed. On Sunday, when the latest severe storm rolled through, the warning sirens went off because winds of 70 miles per hour were reached or had the potential to be reached, a glitch in the software prevented the doors from opening properly.

“We had a weather briefing I looked at at 2 o’ clock from the National Weather Service,” Harding said. “It said there was a low potential for wind. We were like in the 5 to 20 percent chance of wind, very low for a tornado. So, we had looked at that and didn’t think anything else of it.

“When the sirens went off, we were all just as surprised as everybody else. And so once we heard the sirens, we got into the system to try to open the safe rooms and then realized that we were not able to get in the system. 

“Typically if there is a tornado watch, we kind of pull up our system to look to get into it just to make sure everything’s working right. This one kind of completely caught us off guard. And so when we got into the system, that’s when we realized the system was not working properly. And so we proceeded to contact as many of our safe room volunteers as possible. So some did show up, and we had five of 13 volunteers show up to the safe rooms to unlock them manually.”

There was a problem with the software, which is what prevented the doors from being opened. Joplin Schools have sent their technicians to repeatedly test the system since Sunday along with the technician from the company in charge of the software and system.

Thankfully, the sirens were for high winds and not particularly a tornado, with little damage done in the Joplin area. However, it was an alarming situation and conversations about backup plans have been taking place since.

“We’ve been in the process the last couple days of testing them repeatedly and not only just actually testing and opening them, but testing them by pulling up the system quickly to make sure we’re able to have access,” Harding said. “Right now, we are able to do that. We’re also looking at some possible procedures to alert safe room volunteers and principals, maybe even ahead of time with the possible thunderstorm warnings as well as tornado watches and warnings.”

Usually, the school system can call and get advanced notification from the City of Joplin if they plan on sounding the sirens, Harding added, particularly if there is a storm with a history of producing tornadoes. 

“Often, we contact the City during tornado watches or potential warning to gain an understand of the City’s thinking regarding the possible activation of sirens in preparation for the district to open safe rooms,” Harding said. “In this case, because of the speed of the storm and the fact that there was no tornado watch or warning, the situation was more complicated. Moving forward, will take extra precaution to contact city officials in similar situations.”