With severe weather threat, Dan River Region schools held classes. Then a tornado hit. (2024)

Schools in Danville and Pittsylvania County forged ahead with classes on a delayed schedule Friday, the day remnants of Hurricane Helene unleashed a flurry of severe weather warnings and a tornado roared through the Dry Fork area.

The move was a departure from the threat posed by Hurricane Debbie in early August that shuttered schools for two days. The decision quickly sparked a firestorm of social media controversy with parents concerned about children being in school during a potential for severe weather.

In decades past, schools generally closed for road-related hazards, such as snow. In recent years, that’s expanded to the possibility of extreme weather events.

In this case — days after the event — the two local superintendents pointed to students being in a safer situation inside concrete structures.

“While we do not ever want to have to go through crises, our staff members are trained, and we know that our children are in good care,” Pittsylvania County Schools Superintendent Mark Jones told the Register & Bee.

Jones said the students were warm, dry and received two meals.

“They are also in a large brick building with caring adults who are looking out for their best interest,” he continued. “On Friday, some of our students would have been home alone because their parents were working.”

Danville Public Schools Superintendent Angela Hairston had a similar response when asked by the Register & Bee.

“Friday, our students were looked after in a brick school building,” she said. “If we were closed, some students may have been home alone during the weather events, without an adult to help them with proper safety measures.”

Delayed opening

Danville schools opened under a one-hour delay and Pittsylvania County School started two hours late.

Schools in neighboring Halifax County were closed Friday based on the forecasts for severe weather. Those forecasts, in general, called for heavy rains and breezy conditions.

Although Helene wasn’t on a direct path to the Dan River Region, outer bands were set to enter the area late Thursday and last into Friday. With any landfalling tropical system, the possibility for a tornado exists.

Forecasters acknowledged as much into late Thursday evening, but the threat wasn’t overly hyped.

“The two-hour delay was called Thursday evening based on the weather predictions at that time for Friday,” Jones said via email. “School personnel checked the roads early Friday morning and continued to monitor weather and road conditions predicted that day.”

When any kind of severe weather enters the forecast, school officials keep track of weather reports and talk with the National Weather Service, he said.

Over in Danville, the district safety team gets information from the weather service to review plans.

“If needed, we may directly contact the National Weather Service in Blacksburg or local officials,” Hairston said in an email.

Sometimes starting at 4 a.m., a team meets to evaluate weather situations and to drive the streets of the city.

“We constantly monitor evolving conditions to determine the best course of action,” Hairston said. “Sometimes this can mean a one- or two-hour delay to allow conditions to improve.”

The goal is to let parents know by 5:30 a.m. if school will be in session.

“The one-hour delay for Danville Public Schools was due to forecasted rain and to ensure visibility,” she said. “We wanted our drivers and students to be able to see the streets as they loaded buses for school.”

It wasn’t until about 8 a.m. Friday when a tornado watch was issued for the area including Danville and Pittsylvania County. A watch simply means conditions are ripe for tornadoes to form.

Warnings

At 11:30 a.m., the first warning — one of seven during the school day — was issued by the National Weather Service in Blacksburg. That was for the entire city of Danville and the central and southern part of Pittsylvania County.

Radar had indicated a severe thunderstorm had the potential to drop a tornado.

For Danville, warnings come through a two-way radio system located in all schools.

In Pittsylvania County, officials monitor the weather service for warnings in addition to receiving alerts.

“Administrative staff have cellphones that alert when weather warnings are posted,” Jones explained. “Transportation, central office, school office computers are set to weather reports and radar to watch for impending weather.”

When there’s a warning, staff and students move to areas called “safe zones” in the county school system.

“When a tornado warning is issued for the entire county as large as Pittsylvania County, weather radar is used to pinpoint where the possible tornado is located and to let schools know,” Jones said, “Contact is also made with the National Weather Service in Blacksburg for confirmation of location.”

Hairston said schools implement tornado preparedness plans for such emergencies. That means students stay away from windows — “as much as possible” — and go into the halls until the warning is over.

“Each principal and site leader ensures proper response,” she said. “Parents who arrive to pick up students during the warning must wait until the warning clears.”

After a line of storms passed, warnings subsided in the area until about 2:15 p.m. That’s when another tornado warning was issued for the same area as before.

It was at 2:39 p.m. when the weather served sounded an alarm about the Dry Fork tornado.

In both warnings, radar indicated a tornado was possible.

A day later, the weather service concluded a tornado dropped from the sky at 2:38 p.m. about 3 miles southwest of Dry Fork. It stayed on the ground until 2:56 p.m. when it dissipated about 6 miles west of Chatham.

The tornado damaged about 20 homes in Dry Fork on Friday afternoon and had winds estimated at about 118 mph. No schools were in the path of the twister.

Following that warning, two more came through at about 3:30 p.m. and 4 p.m., creating a delay in students leaving schools.

“Buses were held, and in the areas where possible cells were located, they were held longer,” Jones said of Pittsylvania County.

In Danville, the warning came during the time middle schools were letting out, “which in turn, slightly delayed our other dismissals,” Hairston explained. Students riding buses were home by 4:30 p.m.

Looking back

In retrospect, neither superintendent wavered on decisions made Friday.

“We always reflect on responses to emergency situations that arise so that we can improve,” Jones said.

Hairston said she couldn’t think of any weather situation in her experience that was identical to another.

“We make the best decisions possible based on the available data at the time,” she said. “Weather events can be unpredictable, evolve and change from a minor event to severe weather occurrence.”

However, both said the safety of children and staff members remain the No. 1 priority.

“Following all interruptions of school days due to late arrivals, early releases or closure, we review the factors that led to the decision,” she said. “Changes and adjustments are always welcome, considered and taken into the highest level of consideration for future events.”