EDMONTON- Emergency procedures are being analyzed across the city, after a tornado warning was issued for the City of Edmonton and surrounding areas Wednesday.
Environment Canada issued a tornado watch for the City of Edmonton around 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, just as Melissa Lamay was heading to her five-year-old daughter’s school for her book launch.
“We heard the Alberta emergency alert come on (the radio) notifying us of a tornado watch, so I was scared. And then by the time we got there the skies were black and it was raining.”
As this was going on, both the Edmonton Public School Board and Edmonton Catholic Schools were closely monitoring the situation. When the watch was upgraded to a tornado warning around 2:45 p.m., both systems put their emergency plans into action.
“We made a decision, because it was getting close to dismissal, just to tell the principals to be mindful of their own location in the city, what the weather was like; and if they felt that their school and their students and staff were in any danger, that they should not dismiss the students,” said Jane Sterling, a spokesperson with Edmonton Public Schools.
Edmonton Catholic Schools took a different approach; every principal within the district was instructed to keep all students inside their schools. Students that were being picked up by their parents were allowed to leave, but those taking the bus had to stay inside until after the warning was dropped.
Lori Nagy with Edmonton Catholic Schools said they wanted to be consistent, “knowing of course, that some parents would have some children at more than one school.”
“We had to react very quickly because we didn’t have a lot of time. So it wasn’t a true lockdown, but definitely we wanted to keep all the students together because of safety.”
Dealing with a tornado warning was new for both school boards, as it was the first time a warning was issued while school was in session.
“This is a new phenomenon for us,” said Sterling.
“We’ve never had something like this happen. This is unprecedented in the history of our school district,” Nagy added.
Wednesday’s storm brought heavy winds, rain and hail to the region, but a tornado didn’t form in the end. That, combined with the fact temperatures only reached about 14 degrees celsius, left many Edmontonians wondering why the tornado warning was issued in the first place.
“There was a lot of signs on radar that afternoon that the storms could become tornadic,” said Dan Kulak, a warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment Canada.
“We had an instability environment, we had a wind shear environment and we had trigger mechanisms to get things going. So those are basically some of the ingredients for what we call the supercell or rotating thunderstorms.”
Kulak says when it comes to severe weather, it’s better to be safe than sorry, and believes Environment Canada did the right thing in issuing the warning.
“You don’t know until after the fact, which of those storms is actually going to have that tornado associated. So, put out the tornado warning and deal with it.”
That’s a mindset Lamay agrees with, and says she was extremely pleased with the way her children were handled at school.
“There was no chaos and everyone was very calm,” she said.
The City of Edmonton says this is a good opportunity for everyone to review their personal emergency plans.
“Take this opportunity to kind of regroup. Have a look at your own emergency plans, know whether or not you can get in touch with your family members and you have those emergency supplies in case the power does go out,” said Joanne Sheardown, with Edmonton’s Office of Emergency Management.
You can watch Nicola Crosbie’s interview with Kulak in its entirety below: