Active shooter drill involves emergency services

Odessa Police, the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office, the Town of Odessa and its public works staff, the Odessa Fire Department, Odessa EMTs, Odessa Memorial Hospital and the Odessa School District joined forces February 25 to conduct an “active shooter drill.” The purpose of the drill was to ensure that all entities involved knew what steps to take and what communications to issue should the need ever arise for them.

The school notified sheriff’s office dispatchers in Davenport of their needs based on a scenario in which someone with a firearm was in the school and shots were fired. Dispatchers sent out calls for law enforcement (Odessa Police and Sheriff’s deputies) and emergency personnel (firement and EMTs). Teachers secured their classroom doors and kept students calm and quiet as they waited for further instructions from the administration.

With the school in lockdown, law enforcement personnel took a student assigned to play the role of the “perpetrator” into custody, sent the students playing the roles of those injured to the hospital in ambulances and evacuated the school, sending all students and staff to the community center for safety while they searched the school for any other “perpetrators” or “victims.”

The various entities involved worked well together despite some communications glitches that were discovered. One of the purposes of the drill, school superintendent Suellen White said, was to uncover just such problems and address them before any real emergency situation might develop.

Wednesday was an early-release day, so once the drill was completed, the students returned to school and gathered their coats and books and were sent home.