Nixa schools get two FEMA tornado shelters

Community shelter will provide a safe place for students, staff and neighbors

August 09, 2012|by Ashley Reynolds, KY3 News | areynolds@ky3.com

NIXA, Mo. -- As students get ready to head back to classes, a few districts in the Ozarks are already preparing for severe weather, trying to use a lesson from the tornado in Joplin last year.

The Nixa School District received more than $2 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for two shelters, and construction is well underway.

“Our children are our most precious commodity. Anything we can do to keep them safe is the upmost important thing that we do. Having a facility that we can put our kids in and know that we will be safe, I think it gives us peace of mind for all of us here,” said April Hawkins, principal of Inman Intermediate School.

“The Joplin videos were really bone chilling. They hit to the core of our responsibility to provide safety and security to the community and students and staff,” said Superintendent Stephen Kleinsmith.

More than 500 students and staff at Inman, and folks in the neighborhood, now have a community shelter. FEMA grants paid for the structure. Nixa schools also put in about $500,000, so it can also be used as a gymnasium.

The walls are 12 inches thick, built to withstand winds of 250 miles per hour. Crews will install a generator in one room, so folks don't have to worry if the power goes out during severe weather.

“Yeah it's about playing it safe -- better safe than sorry,” said Kleinsmith, “but, at the same time, we know it's not ‘if’ we are going to have a problem, or ‘if’ we are going to use these. It's a matter of ‘when.’

“A tornado can happen anywhere at any time of day, and knowing we are responsible for all these students and to keep them safe every day, I feel so much more at ease knowing I have a safe place where we can take our students,” said Hawkins.

The shelter should be done sometime this fall.

Crews are also building a shelter at Matthews Elementary. The district is applying for grants to build one for the high school and other elementary schools.

District leaders started these plans before the tornado in Joplin, but officials say the application process has moved faster since the EF-5 twister.

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