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CENTERVILLE — Centerville police are defending a decision to announce the closure of schools in the city during last week's damaging winds.
Davis School District says it was not police department's choice to make Thursday, and ultimately added more risk to a complicated logistical equation.
"It was a decision that was made that was critical at that very second," Lt. Paul Child said Tuesday.
Child said Chief Neal Worsley was outside assessing conditions that morning. With wind shaking power lines, blowing over trees and turning rocks, debris and sheet metal into dangerous projectiles, Worsley made the decision to close schools over of safety concerns.
We feel like it was a public safety thing - which is our realm.
–Lt. Paul Child
"He didn't want kids walking to schools, he didn't want traffic out there as much as possible," Child said.
So, around 7:00 a.m., Child said Worsley instructed him to make a reverse 911 call to residents, telling them the schools were closing and not to take their children to school. The city had already issued a recorded message the night before, warning of potential damage from the anticipated 80 mph-plus winds.
"We feel like it was a public safety thing - which is our realm," Child said.
Davis School District spokesman Chris Williams maintains the police department was out of line.
"They can't close schools because we had staff in the schools and kids coming to school already," he said. "We're the only ones that have that authority."
Williams said nobody from the police department contacted district administrators. Child said he personally instructed a co-worker to notify district officials. He acknowledged phone issues could have played a factor, but administrators could not be reached.
If there's another entity that we have not talked with who is closing our schools ... we just can't have that happen.
–Davis Williams, Davis School District
"If there's another entity that we have not talked with who is closing our schools ... we just can't have that happen," Williams said.
Williams said the district discussed Wednesday the possibility of closing schools on Thursday, but too much uncertainty lingered about the storm.
In addition to the city's reverse 911 call on Wednesday night, meteorologists had warned about the potential severity of the winds days earlier.
"You never know," Williams said. "We've heard instances where storms are coming in, 'batten down the hatches,' and nothing happens."
The storm took a toll on cities in Davis and Weber counties, and did not spare the district's infrastructure. Sixty-nine of the district's 206 buses sustained damage. A number of those had their emergency hatches blown off. Some buses, which were hit hard by wind-propelled rocks and tree limbs, had all their windows blown out.
The Standard Examiner reports one bus driver suffered a broken ankle as he tried to retrieve a hatch that had blown off. The wind picked him up and threw him down again.
Both the district and Centerville Police said they looked forward to sitting down and discussing problems and issues that surfaced during the wind event.
Williams said the district is not committing to changes in its closure policy, but is planning to re-evaluate. Officials plan to meet with leaders of various cities in the county in addition to those from Centerville.
Email: aadams@ksl.com
