Florida State University certified as "Storm Ready"

By: Brittany Benner

Tallahassee, Florida -- If you're the parent of a college student, you probably worry about your child's safety, especially during an emergency. Florida State University now has a few extra tools in their campus toolbox to keep their pupils safe.

“When I started out with this project, I was looking for a way to make our campus safer,” said Charlie Woodrum.

Thanks to Woodrum, 80 new NOAA weather radios, three news sirens, and ongoing weather spotter training… Florida State University is officially “Storm Ready.”

“When a severe weather event approaches, our campus is ready. We have an emergency plan, we have sirens, we have ways of notifying our students,” said Woodrum.

Woodrum is a senior Meteorology student who coordinated the National Weather Service approved campus alert system.

School officials will use a number of methods to alert Seminoles in the event of weather or any other type of emergency. For example, students will get a text message on their cell phone.

Even quicker, student will hear one of three outdoor sirens throughout campus. Those sirens will sound different alarms for different emergencies, followed by instructions from an official on campus.

One example instruction: “Attention! Attention! Please seek shelter and check with campus officials for further information.”

“So if there would be a gunman on campus or any kind of severe threat where students are in danger, they could hear exactly what is going on and why they need to take cover,” said Woodrum.

Dave Bujak is the Emergency Management Coordinator on campus. He says this student-run project shows how Seminoles really look after each other.

“Storm Ready is but another badge of honor that indicates that we've achieved a certain level of success in meeting that goal,” said Bujak.

“It's very gratifying to know that I had a hand in that,” said Woodrum.

Florida State University became the 1^st in the state and 16^th in the nation to be certified “Storm Ready.”

FSU officials say the equipment needed to become certified cost $100,000, but the university got a $50,000 federal grant to help pay for that.

Eckerd College in St. Petersburg was also recently certified as “Storm Ready.”

Make sure to check out http://www.stormready.noaa.gov/ for more information about the program and its participants.