When students returned from a long summer away from Trinity, their email inboxes on the first day of school held an unfamiliar message:
“A message from TRINITY PREPARATORY SCHOOL-This is a lightning alert. Remain under cover when changing classes and follow teachers’ instructions.”
With the new installment of the lightning system and bombardment of rainy August weather, the school is now able to react to stormy weather within a six mile radius with rapid efficiency.
“The most impacted sports are football, swimming and cross-country,” Athletic Director Steven Bluth said. The lightning siren sounds when lightning is present in the six mile radius and notifies sports teams across campus to stop their practice and take intervals of 30 minute breaks every time the lightning is detected.
According to Bluth, the dangerous alternative is someone potentially being hit by lightning, which happened at The First Academy of Orlando, a nearby school. According to News 6, a student attending The First Academy school was injured by a lightning strike on August 9, highlighting the need for Trinity’s new system. The siren was installed in May and tested at the end of the last school year and during the summer to ensure safety.
The monitoring is not just the audible siren on campus, but also includes a website that tracks where the last strike was, when it happened and how long athletes should wait before resuming practice.
Aquatics Director Rocco Aceto is a strong supporter of the new notification system because he thinks it will contribute to students’ safety campus-wide.
“It measures static electricity in the clouds,” Aceto said. “It’s exact…I love it and would have loved to have had it 11 years ago.”
Prior to the implementation of Trinity’s lightning system, the swimming program used a combination of a 300 dollar Cytoscan handheld lightning detector, an iPad using Weather.com and good old common sense. But lightning has much more of an impact than seen at just face value.
Lightning forces the swim and football teams to modify their training schedules to accommodate the dangerous conditions.
“It’s been pretty inconvenient at a lot of times,” junior Mark Manglardi said. “Of course with the new lightning system whenever there is a strike we have to go in and wait 30 minutes, so it’s gotten in the way of a lot of afternoon practices.”
There are some football players who believe the lightning siren has been inhibiting the performance of the team.
“We want to practice as much as we can, it’s how we get better”, Manglardi said. “Last week we played Calvary Christian and we didn’t get to practice that much that week because of rain and lightning everyday in the afternoon so I think it did hurt us.”
Now, the swim team is compensating for the bad weather by practicing before school.
“I don’t like particularly swimming in the morning just because I have to wake up so early and I’m not a morning person,” swimmer Kaitlyn Gasner said. “[We] swim from 6 to 7:20 in the morning and that means I wake up at 5:10.”
The homecoming game versus Father Lopez Catholic High School on September 30, 2016 was also met with 3 weather delays administered by the siren and eventually ended on October 3rd.
Although many students have responded with various reactions, the lightning alarm will remain in effect to protect the wellbeing of students.
