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Published April 20, 2008 05:38 pm - County schools prepare for mock disaster, evacuation By Brittany Woodby BWOODBY@CULLMANTIMES.COM
Cullman County Schools are preparing to protect students during potential disasters by practicing evacuation and response skills now. The school board approved an agreement with Ryans Creek Baptist Church at Thursday’s meeting to secure the church as an evacuation site for Cold Springs students. “We started preparing this agreement about six months ago,” Cullman County Schools Superintendent Hank Allen said. “Ryan’s Creek is close enough to Cold Springs’ campus, yet far enough away to take students away from any catastrophe that might have happened.” The board and the church reached the agreement only weeks before the school system holds a mock disaster at Cold Springs. “The mock disaster planned is simply so we can actually go through our procedures to respond to a disaster,” Allen said. “This will not only be practice for the school system but it will give the schools the opportunity to work with other agencies during response.” Allen said the Cullman County Sheriff’s Department, county fire departments, the Emergency Management Agency and county road departments have been part of the mock disaster planning. On May 12, Allen said these agencies will respond to a fake gas leak at a propane tank near the schools. “We will evacuate students to Ryans Creek, and this should show us how much time it takes to evacuate students, get them on buses and to the site,” Allen said. “We will utilize the emergency phone system to coordinate parent pick up.” Though students will be evacuated, Allen said the mock disaster will not take away from much instructional time during the day. While this is the first time the system has staged an incident at Cold Springs schools, Allen said crews responded to a mock disaster last summer at Hanceville schools. “We had an actual perpetrator come on campus, with a gun and he took some students hostage in a classroom there,” he said. “Everything was mocked, but we video taped it so we could go back and learn from our mistakes.” Through that practice, Allen said he and others realized they were not quite as prepared as they had thought to manage a student evacuation. “We realized we needed to secure a site off-campus to take students,” he said. “That’s one of the reasons we made the deal with Ryans Creek Baptist.” Allen said the school board is working to secure agreements with various churches and community centers in areas near county schools to allow use of those facilities in the event of an emergency evacuation. Allen said some schools may require agreements with multiple facilities in their communities, due to student population size. Eventually, the board intends to hold a mock disaster at each school to practice that school’s and community’s disaster response plans. 
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