Anonymous wrote:My kids said they went in the hall and had to kneel down with their hands over their head for the duration of the warning. This is a FCPS Elementary.

Same story here - he said they were out in the hall for 30 minutes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach in an elementary school in FCPS. This is the first I've heard there was a warning, but maybe it wasn't issued for us.

This is troubling. Fairfax county had a tornado warning and your school should have responded.

That's what I'm starting to think. I don't know why we didn't hear anything.

The tornado warning covered only a small part of FCPS (the western areas). I know because I'm in it. My child's school had an announcement over the loudspeaker that they needed to go into storm mode or something to that effect (my 5th grader isn't great with details).

I doubt the kids in unaffected areas needed to go into tornado drill areas. I mean, if they really wanted to go ahead and do the drill just because, fine. But you really only need to activate your response in affected areas.

I'm guessing this is the case. We are in Springfield and did nothing out of the ordinary yesterday. Around 1:20 it was pretty nice and classes were even outside when the nastiest part of the storm blew up and they had to come in. I never heard of any warning.

NP here. We're in West Springfield and my kids' school did the tornado thing. My 1st grader informed me that while everyone was tucked covering their heads, someone started the telephone game with the word "poop." My 3rd grader, who is upstairs, was moved downstairs into the library. The principal also sent an email after explaining.

I teach in West Springfield. We were unaware of any warning.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ya'll would have never survived living in Ohio.

Exactly my thoughts reading this thread. I pay zero attention to tornado warnings in the DC area. Back home, I take them a little more seriously.

I grew up in Texas. That means that I don't ignore Tornado Warnings here. Sure, the tornadoes here are not usually very strong. Even a small tornado is dangerous.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ya'll would have never survived living in Ohio.

Exactly my thoughts reading this thread. I pay zero attention to tornado warnings in the DC area. Back home, I take them a little more seriously.

I grew up in a tough weather area too but with my children we heed major safety and weather warnings. Since you pay "zero attention" to the warnings, please let me know before a play date at your house, before you coach my kid's soccer team, join our neighborhood carpool or chaperone on a school trip. Thanks.

If you could let me know too. That would be great.

I do wonder how schools decided if they were doing it or not. I mean, the warning covered a specific area, but there were some straight line winds elsewhere that damaged property and downed trees.

I'm sure plenty of people are calling to find out today. My child's school was right in the center of the cone, so I knew they would do their tornado preparedness procedure.

The weather did come on quickly, though. I was out for a while and got back to my house at 12:45ish. The sun was coming out and the sky was beautiful blue. Then it turned very quickly - I was watching a show and suddenly, I heard crazy wind and rain, was about to get up from my spot in the living room when my phone screamed at me about a tornado warning.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach in an elementary school in FCPS. This is the first I've heard there was a warning, but maybe it wasn't issued for us.

This is troubling. Fairfax county had a tornado warning and your school should have responded.

That's what I'm starting to think. I don't know why we didn't hear anything.

The tornado warning covered only a small part of FCPS (the western areas). I know because I'm in it. My child's school had an announcement over the loudspeaker that they needed to go into storm mode or something to that effect (my 5th grader isn't great with details).

I doubt the kids in unaffected areas needed to go into tornado drill areas. I mean, if they really wanted to go ahead and do the drill just because, fine. But you really only need to activate your response in affected areas.

I'm guessing this is the case. We are in Springfield and did nothing out of the ordinary yesterday. Around 1:20 it was pretty nice and classes were even outside when the nastiest part of the storm blew up and they had to come in. I never heard of any warning.

NP here. We're in West Springfield and my kids' school did the tornado thing. My 1st grader informed me that while everyone was tucked covering their heads, someone started the telephone game with the word "poop." My 3rd grader, who is upstairs, was moved downstairs into the library. The principal also sent an email after explaining.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ya'll would have never survived living in Ohio.

Exactly my thoughts reading this thread. I pay zero attention to tornado warnings in the DC area. Back home, I take them a little more seriously.

I grew up in a tough weather area too but with my children we heed major safety and weather warnings. Since you pay "zero attention" to the warnings, please let me know before a play date at your house, before you coach my kid's soccer team, join our neighborhood carpool or chaperone on a school trip. Thanks.

My APS elementary did a tornado drill and we were informed by email it was because of weather events.

Anonymous wrote:Ya'll would have never survived living in Ohio.

Exactly my thoughts reading this thread. I pay zero attention to tornado warnings in the DC area. Back home, I take them a little more seriously.

My kids school in Alexandria acted on the tornado warning by following the typical tornado protocol (hallway, heads down, etc). Good thing too as there was a tornado across the river at Bolling.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach in an elementary school in FCPS. This is the first I've heard there was a warning, but maybe it wasn't issued for us.

This is troubling. Fairfax county had a tornado warning and your school should have responded.

That's what I'm starting to think. I don't know why we didn't hear anything.

The tornado warning covered only a small part of FCPS (the western areas). I know because I'm in it. My child's school had an announcement over the loudspeaker that they needed to go into storm mode or something to that effect (my 5th grader isn't great with details).

I doubt the kids in unaffected areas needed to go into tornado drill areas. I mean, if they really wanted to go ahead and do the drill just because, fine. But you really only need to activate your response in affected areas.

I'm guessing this is the case. We are in Springfield and did nothing out of the ordinary yesterday. Around 1:20 it was pretty nice and classes were even outside when the nastiest part of the storm blew up and they had to come in. I never heard of any warning.

Ya'll would have never survived living in Ohio.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The warning was not for all of Fairfax County. It was mostly Chantilly, Centreville, Herndon, Reston some of Great Falls and some of Vienna.

and McLean and Falls Church.

My kids are in McLean and did the drill. But I can't figure out how I missed it? I work from home in McLean and was following CWG, the TV was on some (the Golf Channel but I didn't see/hear a local emergency alert) and I missed any warning for McLean.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our FCPS did nothing at all. We are under renovation and the kids stayed in their trailers

No no no. If your kid stays in a trailer for tornado or fire drills, this is one thing I'd raise holy hell over. Totally unacceptable. Those trailers can absolutely be blown around in high winds and are certainly not as fire safe as a brick building. This is not a joke and should be taken very seriously. This was an admin failure and gross breach of safety protocol.

OR maybe this FCPS school was in a part of the county that did not have a warning. Did you bother to read 00:05's post?

No. You didn't read the post you responded to.

Anonymous wrote:The warning was not for all of Fairfax County. It was mostly Chantilly, Centreville, Herndon, Reston some of Great Falls and some of Vienna.

and McLean and Falls Church.