Twas the day before New Year’s and all through Northwest Arkansas a Tornado was roaring. The winds were blowing and the storm was raging. Some citizens were alerted and hid in fright while other slept peacefully all through the night.
The closest the tornado got to Springdale was Tontitown. However, several Har-Ber students received phone calls, text messages and alerts from the weather service regarding the severe storm. Others continued to sleep completely unaware of the danger.
Senior Chase Stepp signed up to get text messages when bad weather hits. So although he got multiple messages all night, he was safe and kept up-to-date on the process of the December tornado.
“It’s very helpful to get the alerts. It helps in advance for when you least expect bad weather,” said Stepp.
Sophomore Alexa Driggers does not get any sort of notification about raging storms, but she also doesn’t want any. She along with her friend only discovered the storm because they were alerted by another sophomore and still awake when the tornado struck.
Driggers says that she doesn’t want the phone calls and other updates because she feels safer not getting the call, like it’s not as close.
“If I sleep through a tornado sucking me up, I will sleep through a phone call,” said Driggers.
Some students didn’t even know about the tornado until it was long gone. They had no notification nor idea of the danger they were in. The tornado destroyed most of the small town of Cincinnati and took three people’s lives.