News from November 17, 2005 issue

911 casualty of Tuesday storm
Local Disaster and Emergency Services coordinator Greg Rushing says Crittenden County dodged the bullet during Tuesday's widespread severe weather and tornadoes, but the storms exposed a serious weakness in the local communications system.

The 911 phone system went down when a tornado hit Madisonville where the emergency telephone system is centered. Rushing said Crittenden, Lyon, Livingston and Marshall counties all lost their 911 capabilities due to the storm.

"It's a serious problem and something we're going to have to address right away," Rushing said.
When 911 goes down, Rushing said it creates a dangerous situation whereby residents with emergencies cannot get the help they need. In times when the emergency phone system goes down, Rushing said, residents should call the local police dispatch number at 965-3500.

In addition to losing the 911 system, Rushing said many residents lost reception of WPSD-TV in Paducah, the main source for weather reports in this area. He said most of the city lost cable reception of Channel 6 in the afternoon hours during the height of the storm. In such cases, he urges residents to tune their radio dial to FM 87.7 to hear audio of WPSD's weather reports.

There was virtually no damage in Crittenden County, but in Marshall and Hopkins county there were dozens of homes destroyed, injuries and one death in Benton due to the storm system which spawned 21 funnel clouds in the region, mostly in western Kentucky. An ambulance and three-member from Marion were dispatch to help in Madisonville Tuesday evening.

Rushing said local storm spotters identified a couple of rotating cloud systems above the Ohio River near Tolu, but "all stay aloft. None ever touched the ground," he explained.
The DES coordinator also applauded the school system for getting students home before the worst part of the storm hit the area.

"I think it's a wise decision to get the kids home when they did," he said. "Some counties didn't and they ended up having to shelter students in place."

Crittenden County School Superintendent John Belt said he and Transportation Director Al Starnes met with Rushing early Tuesday morning and held a conference call with Nexrad weather officials in Paducah. Based on the forecast of severe weather passing through Crittenden County at about 3 p.m., Belt said a decision was made to get students home before the storm hit. Otherwise, students would have been on the road and in buses during the worst part of the storm.

"Bus drivers were directed to not leave any child at home if there was not a parent or guardian to receive them," Belt said.

In such cases, those children are brought back to the high school multi-purpose room where teachers and administrators supervise them until a parent or guardian can be contacted.
Starnes said two high school students were brought back to the school and sheltered until parents arrived. He said both had forgotten keys to their homes and that was the reason for their being returned to the school.

"Everything went very smoothly," Starnes said. "It went better than the last time we had to send students home early, last year when the power went out at the elementary school."
It's common for bus drivers to call ahead and alert parents that children will be brought home early, Starnes explained.

"Our bus drivers did a great job making sure someone was home at each drop off point," he added. "The drivers know their passengers, their drop off points and their parents and that makes things work better during emergency situations like this."

Rushing said there were no reports of serious property damage in Crittenden County.
"About all we had were some trees over the roads and we didn't have much of that," he said. "We really dodged a bullet on this one."

Crittenden was directly impacted by a storm less than two weeks ago, when a half dozen homes in the northern section of the county were destroyed or damaged and people injured.