SELMA -- At 9:30 a.m. last Wednesday, as alarms sounded, Selma Elementary students filed out of their classrooms and into the halls, where they crouched down, facing the walls, their arms folded over their heads.

Outside, teachers and administrators shepherded kids from the mobile units and pointed them to open stretches of interior walls. Staff members communicated via walkie-talkie, one of them saying, “I’ve got room for two classes over here.”

It was all a drill, held during Severe Weather Awareness Week. But Assistant Principal Janice Jett, recalling a storm last spring that forced students into hallways, said rehearsing for the real thing was important.

“Weather is part of the Standard Course of Study, so they’ve talked about it in class,” Jett said of Selma Elementary students.

The school has a tornado drill annually, and it holds monthly fire drills. Also, at least four times a year, students rehearse what to do in the event of an intruder on campus.

Schools across North Carolina held tornado drills on Wednesday.

Second-grade teacher Lisa Murphy said she talked to her students about the importance of following the drill to the letter. Before the drill, she had one of her students demonstrate what to do.

“We talked about how every child in North Carolina was doing it at the same time,” Murphy added.

Two of her students, Bryan Maldonado and Lidia Pendergraft, said they felt safer knowing what to do. But they said staying in the crouched position for several minutes was uncomfortable.

“I was sweaty,” Bryan said.

“I couldn’t get up,” Lidia added. “If it [the roof] falls in, it would hardly fall on us, because we were so crouched down.”

“When a real tornado comes, we can be safe when we crouch down,” Bryan said. “I’ll tell my parents how to do it.”