MOUNT VERNON — It was a misty morning at Mount Vernon Nazarene University when teachers, faculty, first responders and emergency management agency directors met inside Ariel Arena to prepare for the worst.
The third annual school reunification exercise brought together people from across the county to practice a reunification procedure. This procedure is used to reunite students with their parents and guardians after an emergency.
‘Recovery starts at reunification’
“This is a plan that we hope that we never have to use,” said Amy Seward, Knox County Emergency Management Agency director.
Seward, who led the training alongside Maintenance and Safety Director of Mount Vernon City Schools Rick Shaffer, said the county recognizes no school within the county can handle reunification on its own.
The reunification team, which boasts around 100 members, includes volunteers from eight schools across the county. The yearly exercise gives workers a chance to be informed on the most updated procedures and practice how to respond to an emergency.
“The other important piece of it is introducing (the plan) to other districts that might be able to utilize (it),” Shaffer said.
A number of representatives from other counties were present, including Crawford and Marion.
The goal of the reunification site is to redirect parent and guardian traffic away from the incident site, where it may hinder first responders. In fact, schools are obligated to bring students to one of these sites to reunify them with their parents and guardians.
“It’s part of their literature that they sign, they will not release these students at the incident site,” Seward said.
Another positive of outside reunification sites is they take the pressure off of districts with smaller facilities.
“Recovery starts at reunification,” Shaffer said. “If we can relieve the pressure of the village and first responders … then we can get students back to normalcy faster, which gets you on the road to recovery faster.”
Building communication skills
Rick Lanuzza, director of Knox County 911, and Nate Hines, assistant fire chief at the Mount Vernon Fire Department, led participants through an exercise designed to test an important part of emergency response: communication.
Participants were split into six groups and each identified one individual as incident command.
The groups were tasked with building a simple Lego structure based off radio instructions from their incident command, who was the only person holding the instruction manual.
Participants adapted quickly when the radios didn’t work through the walls of Foster Hall, just as they’d be expected to during an emergency. Instead, each group identified a runner to act as a liaison between incident command and the rest of the group.
The purpose of the practice was to establish basic communication tactics over radio.
Shaffer and Seward also led a tour around the building. The duo explained where each station would be located in the case of an emergency.
The walkthrough gave participants a chance to become familiar with the procedure before it was time to put it into practice.
From practice to response
Participants were sent to perform their assigned roles after the tour and exercise. While some individuals were assigned as a member of the reunification response team, others played the roles of the parents.
“Paper students” allowed actual students to remain within their classrooms and continue learning while the exercise took place.
The day ended with a hotwash. Seward asked participants what went well, what was sustainable and what could be improved.
The annual exercise provides an opportunity to make sure that, if the day ever comes, the county is ready to bring students and families back together.
(Here are Alexandra Hopkins’ photos of the event.)
