Thousands of college students must evacuate their campuses each hurricane season. Schools like Florida A&M University and Florida State University closed their doors in preparation for Hurricane Helene, a Category 4 hurricane that struck Florida’s Big Bend region and killed at least 232 people across the southeastern United States. 

As destructive as hurricanes are, there are other severe weather events – tornadoes, blizzards and flooding – that impact universities all over the country.

Saint Louis University is located in a tornado alley, so the risk of severe storms is highest from April to June.

The university has protocols set in place, but Chuck Graves, an earth and atmospheric science professor, said that the biggest flaw in SLU’s weather preparations is pre-event planning. Graves explains that there is not enough communication between the department of public safety and students before severe weather strikes. 

“SLU is reactive rather than proactive,” Graves said. “The most important piece is an established line of communication. But since we are getting a lot more impactful weather events, the need to communicate that to faculty, staff and students becomes essential.” 

SLU’s main channel of urgent communication to the campus community is “SLU Alerts.” These are emergency notifications sent by the department of public safety via email, phone call or text, depending on the urgency of the event. 

“We were under a tornado warning, and I had no idea until I got a text from DPS,” said junior Saira Uddin, recalling a tornado warning in 2024.

This tornado warning came on Easter Monday as students were coming back to campus after the break. Students like Uddin relied on the emergency message to learn about the potential tornado. 

Other emergency protocols already in place on campus include established shelter and evacuation meeting locations and emergency phone numbers. 

Graves said that SLU’s protocols are good but there are ways to improve. For example, Graves suggested the university use updated weather radios, which are devices used to receive automatic updates from the National Weather Service on severe weather events in the user’s area.

“The current radios are old and not as programmable as the new ones, which would allow more focused information,” Graves said.

SLU’s Weather Club, run by the school of science and engineering, is working on improving campus preparation for extreme weather events.

Current meteorology graduate student, Lizzie Bannon, said that in 2021, the weather club got the university StormReady certified. This certification means that there is a safe place to shelter within each building on campus and that every building has a weather radio present. 

“It was a cool experience to be a part of a team that worked with the National Weather Service to keep our campus safe,” Bannon said.

During the spring 2023 semester, the St. Louis National Weather Service office also held a workshop for DPS, the dean of students and other campus personnel to perform a tabletop exercise – a workshop to discuss severe weather protocols – for weather preparedness. The university’s meteorology students were invited to observe the exercise. 

“Everyone went through an episode, and they approached it from the forecast leading up to the event rather than ‘here’s the event, how do we deal with the aftermath,’ and so it got the various units thinking about ‘how much time do I need to be notified for us to change activities,’” explained Graves.

Post exercise, attendees determined that one way to improve the weather alerts is to send out information to the school community well before the weather event strikes. For example, a morning debrief explaining that there is a risk of severe weather around a certain time would allow people to plan ahead.  

Graves hopes to work with DPS and the university on making the campus more prepared for emergency weather events. 

With Hurricane Milton on its way to Florida, Graves warns about weather ignorance.

“The idea of not being aware is not an option these days,” Graves said. “If you’re not weather aware, it could significantly impact your life.”