Published: 08/23/2007
Drill to create 'chaotic' scene; Regionwide emergency response network to be tested Monday By Katie Curley Staff Writer
NEWBURYPORT - Law enforcement and rescue personnel from around the region will rush to the scene of a planned emergency at Newburyport High School on Monday, a drill that may appear "chaotic" to those passing by, city officials said.
The emergency response drill is part of a newly adopted Area Law Enforcement Response Team that is preparing for potential emergencies in the city, particularly at the schools.
The ALERT system, initiated by Superintendent Kevin Lyons with the help of Newburyport police and local emergency personnel, will help guarantee a more organized and effective response in Newburyport and the surrounding communities in an emergency situation, City Marshal Thomas Howard said. It will also measure response time in an emergency situation requiring backup from other communities.
Howard met with Superintendent Kevin Lyons and Mayor John Moak yesterday to map out the drill and set objectives as to what emergency personnel have accomplished and hope to accomplish in the future.
"This is indicative of the times," Moak said. "The school administration has been extremely proactive in implementing programs to solve possible problems."
Monday's drill will look like a real emergency, with police and other emergency personnel rushing to the scene and following emergency protocol. With no exact time given to area police, the planned emergency will have all the signs of a random emergency event.
Howard hopes to be able to successfully secure and sweep the high school in under 15 minutes from when the first call is dispatched on the police radio system.
The ALERT system will be the same system used whether an emergency involves an armed intruder or a strange odor, causing illness. Howard feels that it is necessary to handle a situation relying on other communities to avoid depleting the resources of one particular community in an emergency. The system involves nine of the surrounding communities, including Amesbury, Georgetown, Groveland, Merrimac, Newbury, Newburyport, Rowley, Salisbury and West Newbury and will measure response times from their communities to Newburyport High School.
"The ALERT list is really a food chain," Howard said. "Everyone knows where they are on the list and who will provide coverage if needed."
The list of responders to a specific school is organized based on proximity. For example, if an emergency situation arose at Newburyport High School, Amesbury and Newbury would be the first to respond, followed by Salisbury and West Newbury. It is likely that the state police would be in the initial response as well. For the purposes of the drill, all nine communities will respond.
"This has really been a joint venture with the full cooperation with the school system and the nine communities," Howard said.
The Boston Area Police Emergency Response Radio Network system, which allows police to dispatch to all communities in Essex County, will also be tested. The radio system has been operational since March in Newburyport, but it is the first time it will be tested.
In the case of emergency, this would be extremely helpful, Howard said, as no police unit is ever out of range from any community if a situation were to arise.
The Newburyport Police applied for funding for the drill from Northeast Advisory Council, which is a part of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety. State Rep. Michael Costello was instrumental in obtaining the funding for Newburyport.
In efforts not to cause anxiety within the public, Howard has received a billboard from the state to place near the high school to let passing motorists know that the drill is in no way real.
Lyons will use the reverse phone calling system to deliver the message to parents in the school system that a drill is occurring.
Lyons as well as Mayor Moak and the Police Department will be debriefing school administration and personnel after the drill.
The drill will also pave the way for future discussions about school safety and what can be done to make safety even more efficient.
"We are learning and tweaking each year to improve public safety," Moak said
Posted by: DeputyFife
Published: 08/25/2007
Region's police put to test with Monday's drill By Angeljean Chiaramida, Katie Farrell and Stephen Tait
Staff Writers
NEWBURYPORT - Lt. Richard Siemasko said police training drills can be "eerily real," and he doesn't expect anything different for an emergency drill schedule for Monday at the high school.
"It's just a regular Monday, and then all of sudden all hell breaks loose, which is like a typical Monday," he said. "Police work is 99 percent boredom and 1 percent total panic and terror. You never know what you are going to get."
A huge, nine-community police drill is planned for Monday at Newburyport High School. Though they don't know at what time, law enforcement and rescue personnel from around the region will rush to the scene of the planned emergency. It is part of a newly adopted Area Law Enforcement Response Team that is preparing for potential emergencies in the city, particularly at the schools.
Siemasko said he's been to other such drills, such as one at the Brown School in which state police troopers posed as the bad guys as Newburyport police swept the building to secure it. Using "simmunition" or paint ball-like ammunition, the training seemed very life like, Siemasko said.
"It feels very real, eerily real," Siemasko said. "It is amazing how fast hundreds of people can disappear and be totally quiet.
"And if you got hit with a paint ball, you knew it," he added.
The ALERT system, initiated by Superintendent Kevin Lyons with the help of Newburyport police and local emergency personnel, will help guarantee a more organized and effective response in Newburyport and the surrounding communities in an emergency situation.
It will also measure response time in an emergency situation requiring backup from other communities. Siemasko said the emergency could be anything: a gas leak, motor vehicle accident with an explosion or a shooting scenario. Newburyport police will be the first on the scene, likely just the typical three patrolmen working during the weekdays.
"For the first few minutes, which are critical, it is the guys who are working," he said. "They will be the first ones to get there before the reinforcements come."
Salisbury police Chief David L'Esperance, whose department is participating, said these kind of drills help to determine how well area emergency workers respond.
"You know, fire departments are good at drills; they drill a lot, but police departments usually don't," he said. "This will give us a chance to drill on a potential emergency at a local school ... judge response times and how mutual aid between communities functions."
L'Esperance said the police chiefs from the nine communities will meet at Newburyport High School the morning of the drill.
"Salisbury officers know something is going to happen on Monday, but they don't know what or when," L'Esperance said. "The chiefs will be there to watch and judge response times and how all the different mutual aid communities work together."
Newbury police Chief Michael Reilly said setting up such a drill is a "stroke of genius" by Newburyport Marshal Tom Howard. Reilly said it will be interesting to see the inner workings of the command center.
"When you only have a few (officers) on per shift and emergencies happen, you need to call in mutual aid for help," he said. "We plan for (emergencies), but the only way to know if there are flaws in the plan is to practice them in drills like this. This drill will benefit the entire area."
L'Esperance said the chiefs will be filming the drill and in days, weeks and months to come, will gather to analyze the way the drill went to find ways to improve and "polish" the response.
"Ultimately, this is a good opportunity for all the chiefs who can use the drill to find ways to improve security at their own community schools," he said.
In Georgetown, the police will start off like any other day until they receive the call asking for support from Newburyport, Chief Jim Mulligan said.
Police officers are not being told too much what to expect but will receive instructions once they arrive on the scene, he said.
Full-time officers will respond to the drill as reserve officers are brought in to respond to all regular calls in Georgetown, Mulligan said. The funding for reserve officers is coming from a grant secured by Rep. Michael Costello.
Because it is a drill, police officers will not drive from Georgetown to Newburyport at a high speed with the full lights and sirens going, Mulligan said.
"We don't want to take any risk with the public at large," Mulligan said.
Of the nine communities that will respond to the drill, Georgetown is one of the farthest away and will likely be one of the last departments called in for aid, Mulligan said.
"It's a great opportunity to see how things work when they're in a controlled environment," he said.
Practice drills like Monday are instrumental in this day and age when police departments need to work as one when responding to such emergencies, Mulligan said.
"We know from history, it can happen anywhere, so these exercises are fantastic," Mulligan said.
West Newbury Detective Jay Johnson said Monday's drill is the result of lots of planning by area departments.
"This is the gelling of what we've been working on for a number of months," Johnson said. It will serve as an opportunity to identify problems with a response before a real emergency happens.
"These things happen at a moment's notice," he said.
Posted by: Sniper
15 minutes ???????????????????? UMMMM. OKAY.
Posted by: DeputyFife
Published: 08/27/2007
Emergency response drill is today
NEWBURYPORT - Don't be too concerned if you see a lot of out-of-town police and fire vehicles on local roads today.
First responders from around the region will be racing to the scene of a simulated emergency as part of a scheduled drill for the Area Law Enforcement Response Team that would be called up for major emergencies in the city and region.
Nine towns are participating in today's drill, which will simulate an event such as an armed intruder at Newburyport High School.
The ALERT system will help guarantee a more organized and effective response in Newburyport and the surrounding communities in an emergency situation, officials said. At Newburyport High School, an electronic sign will indicate that what is happening is only a drill.
For a closer look at how local officials handled the drill, see tomorrow's Daily News.
Published: 08/28/2007
School shooter response drill goes off without a hitch By Katie Curley Staff Writer
NEWBURYPORT - "A 17-year-old male with a handgun is in the cafeteria. He has brown hair and glasses," the dispatcher said over the police radio, the sound echoing off the outside of Newburyport High School during the emergency response drill yesterday morning.
After a short meeting to give an overview, the initial call to nine surrounding communities went out at 8:40 a.m.
Within minutes, sirens were blaring down High Street and police boots could be heard coming up the school driveway. Superintendent Kevin Lyons, Assistant Superintedent Deirdre Farrell and Mayor John Moak looked on from rows of chairs set up in front of the school.
A command post was quickly established and officers congregated around a white board, mapping out a route into the school. As units responded, they checked in and were assigned a duty.
Within the first 10 minutes from the initial call, nine police cars, one motorcycle and one bicycle were on the scene. Shortly after, two five-member search teams were assembled to search the school and secure the hallways. They were hunting for Jarred Pugh, a student volunteer who served as the suspect.
The emergency drill was planned by Newburyport Marshal Thomas Howard, along with the chiefs from the nine surrounding communities and school personnel, as part of a newly created Area Law Enforcement Response Team that is preparing for potential emergencies.
Police from Newburyport, West Newbury, Amesbury, Salisbury, Newbury, Rowley, Groveland, Merrimac, Georgetown, as well as state police and some local fire departments, responded to the drill, which in the end was seen as a success. "The response time was far better than I had originally anticipated," Howard said after the drill.
While the main objective was to test emergency response time from nine surrounding communities, attention was also given to the ability to establish and secure the inner and outer perimeters and to create teams to go into the school to search for the suspect. "I think it's great that we were able to do this," Moak said as he watched teams of police racing up the front stairs of the high school. "We are very happy with the response, there seems to be a large number of personnel in a short amount of time."
By 9:15 a.m., the secure and search was completed, and personnel were called into the school cafeteria for a debriefing and to point out areas where things could be improved.
School officials and police voiced the need to number each door throughout the inside of the school to allow for clearer communication among police. Also, they want to add a high school yearbook or class list in the "grab and go" emergency bag that police and school personnel rely on in an emergency.
"As we go, we want to pick up information and continue to learn what will provide extra security," Farrell said.
Howard would like to see communications improved, as it was often hard to communicate with the influx of police on the radios. Howard will be sitting down in the coming weeks with the nine police departments and school personnel to review video and dissect all information. He hopes to hold a second drill in the future.
"I think we met what we were hoping to meet," Howard said.
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