WISD drill tests plans of emergency agencies
Police, EMS and ER staff react to school 'shooting'
By BARRY HALVORSON bhalvorson@journal-spectator.com

Staff Photo by Benjamin Sharp Sheriff's Department Deputy Joe Ray Joines escorts a "student" to safety outside Wharton High School during a drill on Friday. The pistol in Joines' hand is a non-firing, rubberized training model.

Radio traffic on the police band scanners Friday carried the kind of messages that horrify a community by relaying information of a potential shooting incident at Wharton High School.

But the community can also take comfort in that each of those messages was preceded and followed by the words, "this is a drill," as local emergency responders and school district officials tested their combined crisis management response plans.

Despite the radio dispatches and what sounded like simulated weapons fire coming from the school building, Wharton Emergency Management Director Jim Cooper declined to comment on the kind of scenario that was being played out on the high school campus at the request of law enforcement officials.

"Law enforcement doesn't want to publicize the facts of the scenario we were working on," Cooper said.

"They don't want a 'copy cat' incident or to influence anyone in an negative way. The specifics of the scenario were not as important as the testing of the plans that are in place, which can be adapted to several different kinds of incidents."

Actual responders to the exercise included the Wharton EMS, Fire and Police Departments, Wharton County Sheriff's Department, Gulf Coast Medical Center, Wharton ISD and the city and county offices of emergency management. The exercise also called for simulated mutual aid being provided by El Campo EMS, AMS Ambulance Service, PHI emergency helicopters, Memorial Hermann's emergency helicopters, Department of Public Safety divisions and event the Federal Aviation Administration, to secure the air traffic over the city.

In addition to the live and simulated agencies, Cooper said student volunteers played the role of concerned parents, community members and the media and were not in the building during the drill.

Volunteer teachers were inside the building representing teachers, students and victims.

"They did a great job and were a tremendous help in creating a realistic situation," Cooper said. "We appreciate their assistance."

He added that one other agency helped with the drill.

"The Rosenberg Police Department provided the actors that played the bad guys in the scenario," Cooper said.

"We scripted out a basic scenario and then they tweaked it so what happened would be unexpected."

In addition to expressing his appreciation to those actually involved, Cooper also offered a blanket thanks to the entire community for its cooperation during the event.

"We had barricades across the road and I didn't see any traffic move through the area," he said. "We all really appreciate the cooperation of the public in allowing us to do something this important."

Adding another unexpected twist of realism to the drill were three actual emergency responses, two motor vehicle accidents on U.S. 59 and a third on Texas 60.

"We had to respond to those actual emergencies and had to divert units we had planned to involve in the drill to those location," Cooper said.

"It actually allowed us to better test how our mutual aid simulation would work. The director of the EMS Department, Fire Chief and Police Chief were all at the command center we had set up at city hall and when the real calls came in they handled the changes seamlessly."

Cooper said the exercise was based on a scenario worked out from a previously held tabletop drill involving all the of the involved agencies.

"Each has a crisis management plan for dealing with various situations," he said.

"What this allowed us to do is bring all of those plans together and determine how to summarize them into an overall plan of action."

While his initial impression is the drill went well overall, Cooper said that a critique of the exercise is planned for around the second week of January to get into the details.

"For example, I haven't had a chance to sit down with (emergency) dispatch to see if they had any additional calls, although we did have student volunteers calling in looking for information like there would be in a real situation.

"It will give us a chance to discuss what worked well and to also look at what we can improve on in the future."