Henryville, IN

I took a trip down to Henryville, IN today.  I had spoken with Larry Ervin, the Hancock County EMA Director, who put me in touch with the Clark County EMA Director Les Kavanaugh, who invited me down to take some pictures of the damage.

No words or pictures can do justice to the damage done to Henryville, especially the elementary and high schools.  I spent about four hours there, and took over 460 pictures.  There was a lot to see, and a whole lot more to think about.

I was able to walk many of the hallways, and got a good look at a lot of the damage done.  I have heard some grumblings that we need to alter how we shelter from storms.  After all that I had seen, I beg to differ.  There are reasons we have done things the way we do.  Valid reasons.  Having a bad incident doesn't mean we can everything we've done and invent something new.

I heard some talk after the Joplin tornado that we should not shelter students in hallways, because they would become wind tunnels.  Well, if you take away interior hallways in most schools, you won't have enough shelter space for everyone in your school.

I will be working on a "best practices' article outlining what the current best practices are for sheltering during a tornado.  With that in hand, THEN we can start talking about whether they should be changed or not.

But let's not be reactionary here.  Lives are at stake.