People across the state of Ohio, including schools in the Valley, participated in a statewide tornado drill Wednesday morning.

The drill was part of Ohio's Severe Weather Awareness Week, which lasts through Sunday, and is a way to help prepare everyone for the severe weather in the upcoming months.

Even though severe weather can happen any time of the year, severe thunderstorms and tornadoes are more frequent in the spring and summer, which is why the state is making sure its residents are prepared.

All across the state at 9:50 a.m., sirens went off and alerts went out as if there were a tornado warning, but this time, it was only a drill. It's a drill that officials at Harding Middle School in Steubenville have participated in for a while.

"We've been doing this for a number of years. Whether a national tornado drill or just having our regular tornado drills because of the area we live in," Harding Middle School Principal Joe Yanok said.

Even though tornadoes aren't as frequent in the valley as they are in other parts of the country, officials say it is still important to know what to do for the time it does happen here, and Yanok agrees.

"This is just a way of preparing the kids and teachers to be better prepared for us to do what we're supposed to do when and if something happens of this nature," said Yanok.

While the drill was short-lived, it took months to plan to make sure everything was done in the safest way possible by getting to the lowest floor of the building quickly without panic.

"We started over the summer time to make sure that when the staff came in in August, that they had it as a part of their opening day packet," Yanok explained.

The acronym that the state's Severe Weather Awareness Committee wants people to remember is DUCK:
Get Down to the lowest floor, get
Under something sturdy,
Cover your head and
Keep in the shelter until the storm has passed.