On the night of March 19, an EF-3 tornado hit Jacksonville State’s campus, damaging dozens of buildings across campus and destroying Merrill Hall.
Fortunately, JSU was on spring break, and no one was killed by the tornado.
At the time the tornado hit, Auburn’s Department of Campus Safety and Security was already closely monitoring the storm to see if it would pose any threat to Auburn.
Chance Corbett, the interim executive director of Campus Safety, said that he contacted JSU’s emergency personnel on the same night.
“I reached out to the police department there at the Jacksonville State University and their emergency manager,” Corbett said. “I asked, ‘Do you need anything, do you need any help emergency management-wise?’ and she immediately said that it was very overwhelming, and they had a lot going on, and so we immediately deployed one of our emergency management planners.”
The emergency management planner was Robert Mann, who drove to JSU the next morning to assist. He was shortly followed by emergency management technician Lyn Littleton.
“On my way up there, I went through the main road that goes north to Jacksonville, and the trees had already been cleared off the main road, but the devastation was very apparent and still in progress, it was bad,” Mann said. “It was initially thought to be only one tornado. It later turned out to be three tornadoes, and the impact on the university itself was overwhelming.”
Mann said that his job as a certified emergency management
“When you’re in the thick of things, sometimes it’s hard to remember everything. It’s good to have an objective viewpoint,” Mann said. “(I) made myself available to them and others for the crisis action team for JSU on call, so if they needed some questions answered that my expertise could answer, then I would do so.”
Mann said that this was the first time that he had been deployed to a university during an ongoing emergency, but he said university emergency managers do often meet and discuss emergency management techniques.
“We just think it’s important as an institution of higher education that we support the other
Corbett said he also contacted the Auburn Police Department, and they were able to send five officers to JSU the next day.
“We were partnered up with officers from the JSU campus, and we assisted them in patrolling the area in order to keep people out of areas where there was severe damage,” said Lt. Jamey Presley. “It was a very rewarding experience to assist another police station and also to assist the students and faculty at Jacksonville State.”
This is not the first time that Auburn has helped a school recover from disaster.
Corbett said that in 2011 Auburn Campus Safety sent personnel and resources to Tuscaloosa in the aftermath of the tornado damage there.
“We all have the same mission to
Despite the damage, JSU is scheduled to open on April 2, and students will have the option to not finish the semester.
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