Massive Exercise Sharpens Responses
by Ben Hogwood

HYDE PARK - It was a macabre scenario - a situation that would push all
the emergency agencies participating to their limits.
At 9:30 a.m., two gunmen inside the Lamoille Union High School activated
the fire alarm. One third of the students escaped the school and were
transported by bus to Johnson State College. The remainder, including
teachers and the principal, were held back, some dead, some with gunshot
wounds. In addition, the gunmen dumped gasoline on those inside the
building to increase the threat level.
This was the premise of the Lamoille County Community Services Exercise,
organized by the Local Emergency Planning Committee District #11. The
exercise, which has been planned for the past year, was to find the
areas of weakness for the different agencies, such as police, fire, and
EMS, to work on in preparation for an actual event.
Jim Rose, planning technician with Lamoille County Planning Commission,
said the exercise went very well. "We're going to be a lot more prepared
for another practice or a live event," he said.
The participating agencies responded to the situation as if it were
real. Once police were made aware of the situation, Sheriff Roger
Marcoux, Jr. set up an Incident Command Post at the Hyde Park Town
Clerk's office, with representative managers from EMS, fire departments
and the school. They also set up dispatch from the command post.
Ten minutes after the event began, a group of six police officers, from
all local agencies, went in the middle school entrance and moved down
the hallways, checking the classrooms on the way. This first group
quickly found a gunman in the middle school bathroom and, after
handcuffing him, continued to move through the building.
Four minutes after the first group went in, another team entered the
building. Locating the injured victims, the team moved everyone into one
area of the hallway, leaving an officer there to offer protection in
case a gunman returned.
By 10:43 a.m., injured students still inside the building were starting
to panic. One student went to a doorway and started yelling at the
firemen and EMS workers, wondering why all the students had been left
inside.
Debbie Juaire played a concerned parent in the exercise. She began at
the ICP, waiting for information on what happened. However, she decided
that if this were a real event, the first place she would go to is the
school. "I challenged just about everybody there," she said. Juaire
managed to sneak inside the school three times and later had to be
decontaminated from being in the gasoline spill area.
"I was very impressed with the number of rescue agencies that showed
up," she said. "I thought police and firemen took it very seriously."
One of the problems police were prepared for, from a previous walk
through the school, was with communications. The radios used by the
officers didn't have the power to be heard at the ICP from certain areas
of the school. During the exercise, the sheriff's department had an
officer relay transmissions from those inside to Sheriff Marcoux at the
ICP from a vehicle outside the school.
One particular mistake during the event was that Sheriff Marcoux forgot
to call out the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT). This team is
available to provide support to emergency responders in the case of a
widescale disaster. Team members are also trained to act as leaders in
their own neighborhoods and work places in case of an emergency. Other
than this, Marcoux, Jr. thought the exercise went very well. "For me it
was time well spent," he said. One reason it went so well, he said, was
because the different organizations are used to working with each other.
In addition, the sheriff said the school's emergency planning was very
good and helpful for the event. Lee Sturtevant, a member of the Local
Emergency Planning Committee #11, prepared a map of the school which was
useful during the exercise. With this, Marcoux, back at the ICP, knew
exactly where the police teams were inside the school and what areas had
been secured.
Sharon Fortune, LUHS principal, was herself a participant, and was
surprised at the effect the exercise had upon her. "It bothered me more
than I thought it would," she said. Fortune was playing the role of the
injured principal and was ushered past the injured students on her way
out the door. "It was very difficult," she said, seeing her students
injured, some of them dead.
One of the flaws the exercise pointed out was with the telephone system
in the school. Fortune said she was using the phones to speak with other
administrators in the building during the event, but the telephone in
her office, which was pitch black, broke. She didn't want to turn the
light on because she didn't want the shooter to know where she was. Two
way radios have already been ordered, she said.
As to the response from the police, fire and emergency agencies, Fortune
was impressed. "I think the response, the participation level was
exceptional," she said.
When firemen finally took the injured students out, they were
decontaminated using equipment from the Morrisville Fire Department.
Those seriously injured were then loaded on ambulances and taken to
Copley Hospital, which conducted its own emergency procedure in the
event of a major catastrophe.
The students who got out of the school early and were evacuated to JSC
were inventoried and assessed at the school. Woody Dionne, director of
the physical plant at the JSC, said the exercise pointed out areas which
need to be worked on.
Rose, the key organizer of the event, said approximately 125 people
participated in the exercise. He was impressed that so many people,
especially students, gave up a Saturday for this. "I think it went
great," he said.
"We're a small county to pull off something of this magnitude," said
Marcoux, Jr. "The learning everybody got out of this is transferable to
different events," he added.
Evaluators, who watched every part of the exercise as it unfolded, will
write up statements. A final critique will be prepared in two to three
weeks.
"In an exercise like this, it's only a failure if you don't recognize
the problem areas," said Marcoux, Jr.