Credit: Tom Sofield/LevittownNow.com
The Pennsbury School District and emergency responders are working together to bring a full-scale active shooter drill to the area on Monday.
The drill is expected to last about six hours. The lion’s share of the excercise will be held inside Charles Boehm Middle School at 866 Big Oak Road in Lower Makefield. The drill will also utilize the west campus of the high school in Falls Township, William Penn Middle School in Lower Makefield and area hospitals.
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In addition to dozens of emergency responders, there are a number of volunteers participating in the drill, including 88 students, 46 parents and 22 staff members.
Local police and emergency response agencies include the Falls Township police, Lower Makefield Township police, Tullytown Borough police, Yardley Borough police, Levittown-Fairless Hills Rescue Squad, Yardley-Makefield Rescue Squad, Yardley-Makefield Fire Company, Fairless Hills Fire Company, Falls Township Fire Marshal, Bucks County District Attorney’s Office, Bucks County Emergency Management, Levittown Fire Company No.1, Falls Township Fire Company, Tullytwon Fire Company, Aria-Jefferson Health’s Bucks County Campus and St. Mary Medical Center. The FBI and Secret Service will also be involved in the training.
Falls police Lt. Hank Ward said no mobile devices or cameras will be allowed during the drill to protect the life-saving techniques used by law enforcement and other responders.
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Ward and Lower Makefield Lt. Jason Braim explained that officers responding to the drill will not know the exact situation and will have to make judgements calls based on the case. The drill will play out in real time and will be a vital tool for emergency officials and the district.
Police will work with the district and other agencies to review the response and make improvements to current response plans.
“We anticipate our response will come up short,” Pennsbury Superintendent Dr. William Gretzula said. “That’s how we improve.”
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“This type of exercise, when conducted on such a large scale, helps to simulate real-life events and proves invaluable to local agencies and to the public,” said Sherwood Taylor, Pennsbury director of administrative services, who has worked over the past several months to coordinate all of the groups involved. “The Pennsbury School Board asked for us to initiate this important drill. Follow-up discussions afterwards will help us to fine-tune our response activity and protocols.”
While the upcoming drill is the first of its scale in the district, Taylor said Pennsbury officials and police have worked together in the past on table-top exercises.
Taylor and Ann Langtry, Pennsbury’s coordinator of communications, said the district plans to notify residents near the drill sites with communications and robocalls. Police said large electronic billboards would be put into place.
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The Falls Township police department held two separate information meetings for parents in the school district to inform them on how to react and handle communication on the day of the active shooter drill and how they should handle real active shooter drills if they ever should happen in the district.
The district is scheduled to be closed for students on Monday.
Falls Township and Bucks County emergency responders worked with Philadelphia and federal law enforcement during a large scale hazmat and SWAT drill at the Air Liquide facility along Bordentown Road in 2012.
