Interesting Situatuion at my school

[NHWhelens]

I am sort of new to the board and to sirens and fire alarms etc, but I live in New Hampshire where we dont usually see torndoes. Yesterday around 1 o clock my county went under a tornado warning while I was at school. The lights began to flicker then went out, and the sky turned an ominous green. My principal then turned the fire alarms on to alert us and told us to get under our desks. Baseball size hail and wind gusts blew in the windows and sent glass everywhere.
My question is, is this a normal procedure for a tornado warning? It seems pretty dumb to sound the fire alarms and hide under a desk.
Thanks

[Jim_Ferer]

He got your attention, though, and that was the goal. It would have been a lot better to go out in the hall away from the classroom windows.

BTW, I lived in Newmarket from 1978 to 1983 and we had a tornado that took the roof off of the library and damaged the mill downtown. Another tore up a couple of roofs and an above ground swimming pool, so tornadoes aren't unknown in New Hampshire.

[kswx29]

I guess for the NE its pretty common, i usually hear how schools in the NE and SE Canada go into some sort of lockdown when there is a tornado. But here they activate the tornado alarm (Constant ring of class bell) and we go to the first floor hallway and wait for the all clear...

[loudmouth]

last year around this time i bleave or a bit later into the summer the seabrook area wint under a tornado waring and one did touch down and ended up fliping a pickup truck off the road. i was stuck in sea brook and ended up geting caught on 495 with sever rain. but i lucked out towns around me got quarter to baseball size haill.
and to ad a nother note, most of the Seas (seabrook early alert system) sirens you see in the area can allso do voice warning for each town for bad weather.

[Spotter/Chaser]

I am sort of new to the board and to sirens and fire alarms etc, but I live in New Hampshire where we dont usually see torndoes. Yesterday around 1 o clock my county went under a tornado warning while I was at school. The lights began to flicker then went out, and the sky turned an ominous green. My principal then turned the fire alarms on to alert us and told us to get under our desks. Baseball size hail and wind gusts blew in the windows and sent glass everywhere.
My question is, is this a normal procedure for a tornado warning? It seems pretty dumb to sound the fire alarms and hide under a desk.
Thanks

It isn't unheard of. See the thread I started a week or so ago, entitled "Tornado Warning Procedures in Schools" here:

http://airraidsirens.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1913