Some Fort Smith residents seeking refuge at public storm shelters at some area schools Friday night found themselves literally in the eye of the storm when the facilities failed to automatically unlock as emergency sirens went off due to tornado warnings in the area.
Sgt Dewey Young, overnight patrol sergeant for the FSPD, said via telephone at 4:00 AM Saturday morning that a malfunction did occur at two of the shelters in the school district and the automatic locks failed to open.
The malfunctions occurred at Pike Elementary, 411 Pike Avenue, and Bonneville Elementary, 2500 South Waldron.
“We got calls about the doors not unlocking and we sent patrol officers to both sites as soon as we could,” said Sgt. Young. “We are essentially the back-up to the back-up system because it is my understanding that a schools district employee that lives close to each school is supposed to go to the shelters when the sirens are activated.”
“Each of our patrol cars have a set of keys that unlock the shelters,” said Young. “I don’t what our response time was but we got there as soon as we could.”
One Fort Smith resident said the malfuctioning doors left a lot of people vulnerable to the elements and scrambling to get back to their vehicles when the hail started. Barbie McCarrell, who lives two blocks from Pike Elementary posted on Facebook that she and her kids went to the shelter at that school at the first alert from the sirens.
“We heard that tornado’s were heading towards Fort Smith and I asked the kids if they wanted to go and we took off in all the thunder, lightning and drenching rain,” said McCarrell. “When we got there, I dropped the kids off and went and parked the car and when I got there the doors were still locked.”
“A bunch of people were lucky enough to be under the awning by the door, but a bunch of people were stuck out in it with just umbrellas and had to make a mad dash back to their vehicles, said McCarrell. “We went home soaking wet to a house with no electricity, but at least we felt safer.”
“That’s a dangerous situation,” said McCarrell. “People got out in the storm expecting to go to a safe place and were locked out right in the middle of it.”
Sgt. Young said that patrol units did get to the shelters and unlock the doors . By that time, a number of the area residents had sought other shelter.
“We don’t know what caused the malfunction,” said Young. “As the back-up to the back-up we got there as soon as we knew about the problem.
