Thinking about the unthinkable

On Monday and Tuesday, June 10 and 11, with the Virginia Beach workplace shootings fresh in everyone’s mind, Goochland Fire-Rescue hosted a FEMA training course entitled “Campus emergencies, prevention, response, and recovery” at the Central High School Cultural and Educational Center. The session was attended by staff of the school division; sheriff’s office resource officers; fire-rescue; social services; county administration; Virginia State Police and representatives from other jurisdictions.

County and school staff  join other county agencies to prepare for emergencies.

Each time we hear of a criminal-related mass casualty event, the silent prayer “please God, not here” wafts skyward. Preventing these events is tricky, but effective security, which Goochland’s school division constantly reviews, is a good first step. Fast and competent response to these incidents does not happen by accident.  Conducted by the National Center for Biomedical Research at Louisiana State University, the session was designed to provide participants with “an understanding of and ability to navigate through the difficult aspects of dealing with campus emergencies involving natural or manmade events, including acts of violence.”

Using a variety of problem based, integrated activities in small groups, participants crafted coordinated response approaches to different scenarios. Tabletop exercises illustrated how incidents play out and the importance of a coordinated response by all involved agencies. They considered in detail the effects of different kinds of disruptions, including live shooter incidents and natural disasters, including tornadoes and earthquakes.

For the duration of a disruption, be it hours, days, or longer, the timely sharing of accurate information with the public is vital and all available communication methods must be used. For these messages to be effective, the instructor said, a clear policy to determine who originates the messages and a way to ensure that they are not contradictory must be in place.

Social media is an important tool to spread threat alerts quickly. One exercise consisted of composing a message using Twitter to circulate a tornado warning. Wording is important—the action the sender wants the receiver to take should begin the message with supporting information, including the source, and when to expect an update.

Goochland Interim Fire-Rescue Chief D. E. “Eddie” Ferguson, Jr. and Paul Drumwright, county administrative services manager, explained that Goochland County uses the “Code Red” system to push emergency alerts to those who have signed up. Drumwright observed that if alerts are issued too often, they are ignored.

Goochland School Superintendent Dr. Jeremy Raley said that the school division has “signed up for every alert system known to man” and keeps current with new options for information sharing. Raley said that schools can push emergency notifications to all classrooms from remote locations in verbal and visual ways. It is also able to receive cell phone messages that recipients are safe or need help. He said that school policy is to notify parents, as well as first and second contact numbers to ensure that families are kept informed during emergencies. 

  

According to the instructor the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA give local emergency management agencies priority over other users for cellular and land line phones during emergencies.

The last part of the class explored recovery, which was defined as the near and long-term process of getting back to at least pre-incident levels. Schools, said the instructor, are in the business of education. They need to look at what is necessary to restart operations after a disruption as soon as possible.  In a natural disaster, as the massive Joplin tornado, or closer to home the 2011 earthquake that destroyed school buildings in Louisa County challenges extend beyond the immediate incident. In Joplin, unused warehouse space was converted for classroom use.

 In addition to lost facilities, there are community, infrastructure, and mental health issues to deal with. There may be staffing challenges as employees deal with personal issues as they work through the aftermath.

Generic plans don’t work, the instructor contended, they must be specific. To that end, the participants brainstormed about alternatives to the status quo, how operations could continue if current facilities, equipment, or people were not available.  The idea is not to “recreate the wheel, but make the wheel fit your wagon,” one instructor pointed out.

Randolph Elementary School Principal Dan Gardener told how his school maintained operations after its water plant failed on a Thursday morning. Emergency procurement made it possible for a new pump to be purchased and installed, and water to be delivered by tanker truck to keep the school open until the well pump was replaced.

A continuation of operation plan (COOP) includes a detailed list of essential functions, and how to keep them going. The instructor used the Y2K preparations as an example. Organizations looked at all their functions and determined which were critical and discussed work arounds to keep going if something went wrong. Think about what other facilities could be used if one or more schools are no longer available. Organize, prioritize figure out how long you can do without, the instructor urged. “Start with the hard stuff, command and control and backup systems of communication. Determine how to pay people if the usual systems don’t work; see how many people can work remotely if buildings are damaged.”

When things get back to normal, an after-action evaluation to determine what was done well and what went wrong provides valuable information to use the next time something goes wrong.

Participants in this exercise are no doubt, looking at their work space and duties with a different perspective, thinking about the unthinkable, and making plans they hope are never needed.