As tornado season approaches, OU students may wonder where they are able to shelter during severe weather.
Most on-campus buildings have designated severe weather refuge areas that are reserved for OU students, faculty and staff. All residential shelters are restricted to occupants with their university ID.
A tornado watch is used to notify community members about the possibility of a tornado in the next several hours. A tornado warning means that action needs to be taken to seek refuge because a tornado is on the way. Students, faculty and staff can sign up for tornado RAVE alerts through OU’s website.
The OU Police Department recommends sheltering in the lowest level of a building and avoiding windows. People seeking refuge should look for enclosed interior spaces.
Some on-campus severe weather refuge locations include:
• Bizzell Memorial Library: lower levels one and two in designated areas including the elevator lobby and restrooms.
• Physical Sciences Center: interior corridors and lobbies away from glass windows on floors one through four. All classrooms, offices, laboratories and restrooms with closed doors are also safe.
• Dale Hall: the basement.
• Oklahoma Memorial Union: hallways including the hallway to the Conoco wing and in the lowest level of the annex, along with enclosed rooms without windows.
• Cross Village: residents should shelter in amenity spaces on the bottom floor of each building: Cross A, the black box theater; Cross B, the DIY space; Cross C, the cycle studio; Cross D, the rehearsal nook.
• Couch and Walker centers: residents should shelter in the ground-level storm shelter or the basement. Hallways, restrooms and elevator lobbies of floors two through five are also safe.
• David L. Boren Hall: residents should shelter in the basement located in the student resident entrance in the foyer on the first floor.
• Headington Hall: residents should shelter in stairwells on the third, fourth and fifth floors.
• Dunham and Headington colleges: residents should shelter in the basement-level storm shelter.
Locations not listed here are available online, with maps available in each building.
Students living off-campus should not travel to campus. Refuge areas in Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, Oklahoma Memorial Union and Lloyd Noble Center are not open to OU community members living off-campus, who should instead identify safe refuge areas at home. People seeking refuge at home should follow the National Weather Service’s severe weather safety strategy: get in, get down, cover up.
Contact OU Department of Campus Safety at 405-325-5073 with weather safety questions.
This story was edited by Madisson Cameron. Kylie Caldwell and Mary Ann Livingood copy edited this story.
