MU receives StormReady University certification from the National Weather Service

The University of Missouri-Columbia has received its certification to become a StormReady University after completing all necessary requirements.

Eric Aldrich is an assistant teaching professor in atmospheric sciences at Mizzou who works with students in the meteorology department to achieve the storm ready certification by the National Weather Service, "So in order to be a StormReady certified university, there's several steps that the students and faculty and staff have to go through."

Eric Aldrich explains why this is such an important certification for the university to have, "Overall, just to make sure that, not only residential life, but the campus as a whole has a plan for severe weather."

Thomas Schwent and Allison Collier are both students at MU who work towards meeting all the requirements to get the certification, Thomas Schwent spearheaded much of this work, "It was getting storm shelter signage, weather radios, making clear where storm shelter locations were, capacity estimates, all that good stuff that took about a year to do."

When asked why the certification was such an important factor, Thomas had this to say, "It's very important that everyone around here has an understanding of what to do when severe weather strikes, where to go, and to have multiple sources of information to get those warnings." Even after looking to receive this official certification, Allison Collier said there's still more work to be done to keep students and faculty safe, "There's a lot more work to be done, even with just the past, like, tornado warnings on campus, there's a lot of people who were still very confused and didn't know what to do or where to go, so, we want to continue trying to improve storm ready safety on campus."

The atmospheric sciences department is set to host a celebratory event for its students and faculty who did this work next week featuring potential members of the National Weather Service.