Two local superintendents said building National Weather Service-recommended hardened safe rooms at their schools is not financially feasible.

Morgan County Superintendent Bob Balch and Decatur Superintendent Sam Houston said Thursday that their school systems would need state or federal funding if such rooms became a requirement.

The weather service released an assessment Thursday of the March 1 tornado that killed eight students when it slammed into Enterprise High School.

The assessment recommended “hardened safe rooms, lined and topped with concrete and without windows, designed to withstand severe sustained winds and wind gusts.”

Immediately after the Enterprise tornado, architect Mack Freeman estimated it would cost $200,000 to $500,000 to build such a room. Houston said skyrocketing construction costs probably make that estimate low almost nine months later.

“We would definitely need some help (to build a safe room),” Balch said. “Hopefully, this wouldn’t become another unfunded mandate.”

Houston said Decatur has about $30 million in capital project needs for which the school system doesn’t have money.

According to two architects who recently built schools in The Daily’s coverage area, most area schools built between 1960 and 2000 were not built to withstand a tornado. Schools built before 1960 are sturdier because they were built with a Cold War bunker mentality. School construction now follows 2003 International Building Code requirements.

Tornado protection

Architects are now including some tornado protection in their designs. Frank Nola Jr. of SKT Architects said he employed the recent trend of using concrete-filled, concrete block walls and concrete ceilings to create hardened enclosures surrounding two halls in Decatur’s Banks-Caddell Elementary.

A mechanical mezzanine runs above an overhead platform (ceiling), so there is no mechanical equipment or ductwork to fall and injure someone. Roof and wall collapses killed the Enterprise students.

The new designs are, however, no help for students who go to older schools. Local emergency management agencies evaluated each school building to let school officials know the best and worst places to take cover in the event of a tornado.

Jimmy Brothers, director of Decatur’s Building Department, said it’s doubtful a local school would withstand an F-3 tornado similar to the one that hit Enterprise. The weather service said at the time that the tornado cut a path 200 yards wide and 10 miles long.

“The only way to get away (from a similar tornado) is to burrow underground,” Brothers said.

At the time of the deadly Enterprise tornado outbreak, which also killed six people in a mobile home park near Newton, Ga., and five others in Alabama and Georgia, school officials received criticism for not releasing students before the severe weather hit.

The weather service assessment said the criticism was not warranted because “dismissing the students would have been just as dangerous.”

Houston and Balch said they stay in constant contact with Emergency Management Agency officials when the severe weather threatens. That helps them make decisions like if and when to send students home before an approaching storm.

“We take these storms seriously and take every precaution,” Houston said.