Severe storms delay school release

Severe storms led to a tornado warning in Siloam Springs on Tuesday afternoon, delaying school release and bus routes but causing little damage.

The National Weather Service in Tulsa issued a tornado warning for the area at 3:51 p.m. according to meteorologist Joe Sellers and the city tornado sirens blew not long after. No tornadoes touched down in Benton County or Adair County, Okla., Sellers said.

However, on Thursday, National Weather Service teams were surveying an area three miles southeast of Afton, Okla., in Delaware County, where a tornado was believed to have touched down, he said.

The Siloam Springs Fire Department responded to one downed power line due to the weather, but it did not cause a fire or any injuries, according to Deputy Chief Travis White. The department also responded to a possible lighting strike causing a fire in a field, but found nothing on arrival, he said.

Jody Wiggins, assistant superintendent of schools, said the storms hit around the time that students are usually released from school and loaded onto buses. Wiggins said the school district made the “spur of the moment” decision to hold students and have them take shelter inside the various school buildings in the district until the threat had passed.

A few buses were already loaded with students and had made their way to other school buildings to pick up more children when the decision was made, so school officials had them unload with their bus drivers and take shelter inside, he said.

Each school building has a tornado plan in place and teachers know where to have students take shelter. Because some schools had extra students from the buses, school officials had to improvise a bit, Wiggins said.

“Administrators and teachers did a great job of keeping (students) safe,” he said.

Parents were notified as quickly as possible using the district’s social media sites, website and phone alert system but there was a brief delay because the initial focus was on making sure students were safe, Wiggins said. School buses were about an hour late delivering students home, he said.