Tornados and gov't nanny-ism

[PiCO]

When did this start happening? A friend of mine is at a medical clinic for baby check-up, and there is a tornado watch in the area. The clinic is on "Lockdown"- no one is allowed in or out until the tornado watch is over. Schools are on lockdown also- parents cannot pick up or drop off students until the watch is done.

 

When did this practice start? How is it helping people to not let them into the building during bad weather? Seems kind of strange to me- is there some logical reasoning behind this that I'm not seeing?

[j.griff]

This is all for a WATCH? Interesting. I know that relatives in a tornado prone state, have been relieved that on bad weather days they let the schools release students early, they send them home early before all the "activity" starts- to keep them more safe. I don't understand locking down schools/clinics though. And I must say, I'd be one P.O.'d mother if a school locked down because of weather and wouldn't let me take my child home. Now, if this was happening during a warning, I'd understand not letting people OUT, but not letting them IN? I agree- that's "strange" at best.

[Parabola]

Are you sure about this? I live right in tornado alley and I've never heard of anything like this happening, especially during a WATCH.

Even for a warning, we have always been advised to stay but not prevented from leaving.

[Lisa at Home]

So maybe that's the reason? Government seems to love impractical!

 

If you live in tornado alley, a watch is nothing. How can anyone get anything done being on lockdown all the time???

 

~Lisa

[PiCO]

I believe I misspoke- I must mean WARNING, not WATCH. Whichever is more serious. There were actual tornados seen about 10-15 miles from the places on lockdown. Definitely a threat of imminent tornados.

 

(I never can keep straight which is more serious...)

 

 

Are you sure about this? I live right in tornado alley and I've never heard of anything like this happening, especially during a WATCH.

Even for a warning, we have always been advised to stay but not prevented from leaving.

[PiCO]

So maybe that's the reason? Government seems to love impractical!

 

If you live in tornado alley, a watch is nothing. How can anyone get anything done being on lockdown all the time???

 

~Lisa

 

I don't live in tornado alley, but we do have tornados here a few times every year. Not enough for me to know the difference between a warning and a watch though, evidently! :rolleyes:

 

(I think it was a warning- actual sightings of tornados...)

[j.griff]

This still leaves the question of WHY would they not provide some sort of shelter for those outside?

[Mamagistra]

I don't know when this became common practice, but I don't like it one bit. :glare: A medical clinic you say? Ridiculous!

[Caroline]

When we have a tornado warning, our schools have a severe weather policy. We get all the kids away from doors and windows and we halt all dismissals. Anyone who is outside waiting for their kids is allowed to come inside, certainly. But, no, we will not dismiss children during a warning. We would certainly be held responsible if something happened to a child on the way home that we dismissed during a tornado. Warnings are generally short in duration. We have held the entire county's dismissal up for severe weather.

[Jenny in Atl]

They are probably afraid of getting sued. :glare:

[Jugglin'5]

Maybe I am misunderstanding the policy, but what if they don't let you leave the medical clinic and you have a 13 home babysitting the younger siblings while baby is at the doctor? I don't like people making those kind of decisions for me. I've never heard of this in our tornado-prone area, but I don't know what school policies are.

[Pam "SFSOM" in TN]

They are probably afraid of getting sued. :glare:

 

Really? During a tornado warning, I'd be finding a safe place to ride it out, not going out of a (ostensibly) perfectly safe building. And I WOULD sue a school that knowingly let my kid leave during a local tornado warning. A warning means -- there's a tornado - we see it - it's coming - find shelter NOW!

 

I would never mess with a tornado. Never ever.

[CLHCO]

Does anyone know if there is a real law that allows people to be held against their will in such a circumstance? Is this just a rule of the building someone tried to invoke, or is it an actual law in the books? If so, who has the right to order it?

 

I'd be curious to find out so I know in the future if this happens if I can just demand to be let out and know what my rights are.

 

That's just crazy.

[Pam "SFSOM" in TN]

 

When did this practice start? How is it helping people to not let them into the building during bad weather? Seems kind of strange to me- is there some logical reasoning behind this that I'm not seeing?

 

Not letting them in is, I think, pretty stupid. And a clinic is way different from a school, IMO. How can you tell grown people what they can and can't do?

[mcconnellboys]

Maybe it was because they knew this was going to be such a bad one....? I think they can better indicate size now, at least sometimes....

[Jenny in Atl]

Really? During a tornado warning, I'd be finding a safe place to ride it out, not going out of a (ostensibly) perfectly safe building. And I WOULD sue a school that knowingly let my kid leave during a local tornado warning. A warning means -- there's a tornado - we see it - it's coming - find shelter NOW!

 

I would never mess with a tornado. Never ever.

 

Never underestimate what people will sue over; sad to say, but it's true. I can see litigation over either, letting folks out or even in. Not saying it will hold up in court. :tongue_smilie:

[Pam "SFSOM" in TN]

Never underestimate what people will sue over; sad to say, but it's true. I can see litigation over either, letting folks out or even in. Not saying it will hold up in court. :tongue_smilie:

 

Well, the lockdown part where they won't let people *in* is about the stupidest thing I've heard in a LONG time. I agree with you there. But I think it's prudent to keep the kids in. :001_smile:

[gardenschooler]

The last big tornado warning we had, the schools decided to let the kids out at noon, instead of the usual 2:15. It was long before the tornados were predicted to be in the area (at around 5 pm), but noon was when the thunderstorms hit. Tons of these kids walk home every day, and they were walking in a lightning storm.

 

Also, I don't know how all the parents were supposedly alerted. I guess if you were watching tv, you'd know, or you'd get the computer-generated phone call - that goes to your home phone. What if you're not home? LOTS and LOTS of kids got stranded that day. And it's school policy that they have to vacate the premises within a certain amount of time. So what about the kids who don't live close enough to walk, and their parents work across town? Also, cell phones are prohibited, so they couldn't call their parents. The whole thing was just ridiculous.

 

The clinic scenario sounds crazy, but in this school instance, I think it would have been better in our school situation if the kids had been at least kept there until someone could pick them up.

[Stacie]

Perhaps I can share some insight. A medical facility nearby recently experienced a tornado warning and asked all people inside to remain inside. One lady did not heed the warning and left the building. Long story short, the tornado picked her up and she died from her injuries. I'll look for the story to link.

 

Maybe this facility heard the story and decided to become a bit more proactive in their warnings? I don't know if it is a directive from a government agency or a policy of the medical facility but it sounds like they are protecting something, themselves or their patrons. It also may be the recent tornado experiences across the country that has everyone on edge.

 

 

 

Here is a link for WWL's coverage.

[lynn]

When you live in tornado ally extreme percautions are taken. Here if there is a tornado watch/warning within 100miles they close the schools early and send everyone home. They had school collapse last year while students were taking in the hallways hunkered down waiting for tornado to pass. Also people try to outrun tornado's, why don't ask me they just think they can.

[orangearrow]

Where I live, if they closed schools and businesses every time there was a tornado watch or warning, no one would get anything done or go anywhere between the months of Feb and October. :D

 

The last "big one" we were involved in (1999, iirc), dh and I were driving home from the mall, listening to the info on the radio. We got home with about 10 minutes before it hit. My parents were trying to outrun it ( :confused: ) and left their house, then saw it, and tried to get into our house (which was all locked up because we were hiding out in a closet!). They literally hung onto the gate of our front door while an F-5 went by. :willy_nilly: We were so surprised to hear them banging on the door when things quieted down! (my parents lived right up the street from us, and the houses directly behind them were *gone* and their house was a tragic mess - so it was probably a good thing they were hanging on our front door 6 houses away instead of hiding out in their own house)

 

Just 3 weeks ago, we stood outside watching a tornado form directly over our house. It formed the funnel, but didn't get any strength til it was several miles from our house (and even then was only an F1).

[fivetails]

Can they *really* stop someone from picking up their child though? I mean, if the mother or father arrived at the school and said "I want MY child NOW"... can they really say no? Do they lock her/him out? Lock the child in a classroom? Physically restrain them? (it all sounds nuts but I'm wondering how it works, what's legal, etc)

[Danestress]

There is a protocol for severe weather that requires shutting or locking all the doors - in the interests of protecting the people who are actually admitted to the hospital and under the hospital's care. And to protect workers. Or maybe property? I'm thinking that they don't want doors opening and closing ...

[TravelingChris]

Our schools and military bases have the lockdown position too. It is only in warnings which means the threat is imminent. This is my personal threshhold for my family too. None of my kids is allowed to be out of my immediate house or yard in case of a weather warning of the kind I am concerned about. (Not red flag warnings or rip tide warnings, etc). I am looking at this thread this morning and there was a devasting tornado in Colorado. We had a tornado warning this winter in our coastal community. They locked down schools in the immediately affected area. The tornado hit the ground and tore off roofs. The only reason our base wasn't locked down which was less than a mile from the tornado was because the weather alert system failed.

[Myrtle]

Does anyone know if there is a real law that allows people to be held against their will in such a circumstance? Is this just a rule of the building someone tried to invoke, or is it an actual law in the books? If so, who has the right to order it?

 

I'd be curious to find out so I know in the future if this happens if I can just demand to be let out and know what my rights are.

 

That's just crazy.

 

Probably false imprisonment

 

FALSE IMPRISONMENT - Any intentional detention of the person of another not authorized by law is false imprisonment. It is any illegal imprisonment, without any process whatever, or under color of process wholly illegal, without regard to the question whether any crime has been committed or a debt due.

 

The remedy is an order to be restored to liberty by writ of habeas corpus and to recover damages for the injury by action of trespass. To punish the wrong done to the public by the false imprisonment of an individual, the offender may be indicted.

 

The legal right of law enforcement and schools to declare lockdowns under highly irregular circumstances is given to them via special laws...or else they could be accused of false imprisonment as well, actually, they'd be accused of civil rights violations.

 

If I really needed to leave a business that arbitrarily decided that it had the right to lock their front door on me, I might choose to make an unannounced stealth escape through one of the fire exits which must remained unlocked during business hours. An attempt to physically restrain me might be considered assault. My guess is that the clinic uses "lockdown" as a figure of speech and is completely unaware that they need a specific legal right to forcibly detain any individual. I guess it's a sign of the times that this is the state of morality in our country: "What, you mean I can't just arbitrarily keep adults from doing things just because I personally think it's dangerous or wrong, you mean I need the law on my side? Vigilante do-gooders gone wild. ;-)

 

 

It is too bad that poor lady got killed by a tornado, but as far as I know in this country, we still have the right to make really stupid mistake--unless someone has passed a law making it illegal to strive for a Darwin Award during a tornado.

 

Public schools do have the legal right to declare lockdowns and prevent parents from entering and retrieving their children, and that's another reason that I am glad that mine don't go to public school. :001_smile:

 

If you are up for an R-Rate movie, rent Steven King's "The Mist" it's all about a group of individuals making decisions about who is allowed to leave a grocery store during an attack of tentacled aliens. I don't want to give away the ending of this fine cinemantic production :tongue_smilie: but there is one lady that everone is completely sure will get eaten and they try to keep her from leaving, and she escapes out of the store...

[Myrtle]

Can they *really* stop someone from picking up their child though? I mean, if the mother or father arrived at the school and said "I want MY child NOW"... can they really say no? Do they lock her/him out? Lock the child in a classroom? Physically restrain them? (it all sounds nuts but I'm wondering how it works, what's legal, etc)

 

Well, it made sense to me that there had to be a law, but then again maybe not, if it's all done through Homeland Security....

 

At the extreme reluctance of an assistant principle of an American public high school, he gave me his school’s “mandatory†emergency/lockdown policies, which he told me were not to be disclosed, in full, to anyone in his “community.†However, he was concerned enough about the mandates of these policies, that he handed me the 4 inch, 3-ring binder, with the promise that I would not show it to anyone. To this I agreed...

 

Short, but interesting article with that quote

 

And since then colleges have declared lockdowns in which they detain adults.

[CLHCO]

Probably false imprisonment

 

 

 

The legal right of law enforcement and schools to declare lock-downs under highly irregular circumstances is given to them via special laws...or else they could be accused of false imprisonment as well, actually, they'd be accused of civil rights violations.

 

If I really needed to leave a business that arbitrarily decided that it had the right to lock their front door on me, I might choose to make an unannounced stealth escape through one of the fire exits which must remained unlocked during business hours. An attempt to physically restrain me might be considered assault. My guess is that the clinic uses "lockdown" as a figure of speech and is completely unaware that they need a specific legal right to forcibly detain any individual. I guess it's a sign of the times that this is the state of morality in our country: "What, you mean I can't just arbitrarily keep adults from doing things just because I personally think it's dangerous or wrong, you mean I need the law on my side? Vigilante dogooders gone wild. ;-)

 

 

 

That's what I was thinking. I probably would have left and gone into the next building just out of spite. Okay, maybe not, but I would have thought it.

 

I do agree people make poor decisions in such situations. I remember my dad racing a tornado down the highway when I was a kid. He just wanted to leave work. I don't think I'd ever do something like that but the point is, we are allowed to make these decisions for ourselves.

 

Military, law enforcement, and schools, for obvious reasons, must have some special circumstances but not office buildings.

 

I wouldn't have left because of the distance I travel to any doctor's office, but if I lived down the block and evaluated the situation, I may have. Individual decisions must be respected.

 

I was ducking yesterday though. My kids, dog and cat were in lock-down in our basement. One touched down (not the one on the news that did all the damage) just about 5 miles from us.