A plane crashed into Cowley Cinema 8 and there was a gunman at the Arkansas City Middle School last week.
Not really.
But it seemed real enough to area police, fire, paramedics, educators, corrections officials?and other emergency responders.
The two-day table-top exercise was meant to seem real while teaching participants to form command structures and work well together in case a plane does crash or a gunman threatens Cowley County.
“It started off as a simple process, but as the class got more complex so did the command structures,” said Brian Stone, Cowley County Emergency Management director.
The scenario was actually developed by Marty Villers, a captain with the Winfield Correctional Facility. “We worked together to use the actual resources in Cowley County to make it more realistic,” Stone said.
“People are quickly realizing the Department of Corrections has a lot of resources,” he said.
The exercise was the third of four. The fourth level is as high as the training exercise gets right now, according to Stone.
“That’s when it gets to the high level event with a lot more resources involved – the Katrina, the Greensburg-type event. More federal resources will be involved,” Stone said.
It was just a coincidence that a tactical dispatcher training program was also held at Cowley County Community College.
Three dispatchers from Winfield and?six from Ark City were involved in their second session to train to dispatch from the actual scene of a disaster. That will free regular dispatchers to continue?regular duties, according to Jana McDade, assistant coordinator of Emergency Management Services.
“We will do all the recording and dispatching for different agencies on the scene. We can pull in resources,” McDade said.
The dispatchers put their training to work Saturday with a training exercise based around a gunman at the Ark City Middle School.
“The school was involved. Kids volunteered to be in school,” she said. ” We had a lot different agencies involved.”
The scenarios are designed so participants can learn what works and what doesn’t work. For example, they learned? Saturday that the hand-held radios emergency responders usually car don’t work well inside the school.
A new command post has been ordered with mobile telephones with antennas “which would have been a great help Saturday,” McDade said.
“That’s what these exercises are all about,” she said. “We had a very good exercise with a lot of team players.”
Two more dispatcher classes are scheduled for November and January. The next scenario will be based on a major fire.
“We’re lucky all our agencies are willing to get together,” McDade said.