LATEST NEWS
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Area schools practice
emergency response
By SUE RYAN of
the East Oregonian
sryan@eastoregonian.com
IRRIGON — Area schools
practiced responding to an emergency at the Umatilla Chemical Depot on Tuesday
before the annual CSEPP drill kicked off.
“We are the first school that had the over-pressurized system and
I think because of that the staff has taken the process extremely seriously,”
Principal John Sebastian of A.C. Houghton Elementary School said, noting
staff practices five times a year in addition to the annual two-county drill.
“The most important act is to get into the over-pressurized area,”
he said.
The pressurization pushes air into the rooms to “inflate” them from
the inside and keep outside air out. Filters cover the ventilation system
in the school’s gym. Alarms are set on the doors and windows with two monitors
sitting in front of each door. The doors are kept shut with orange “kick-bars”
to prevent opening but that can be quickly removed.
It took 342 students less than a minute to get into a pressurized
area Tuesday, he said. Once teachers finished counting students, each held
up a green card to show their count was complete.
“We practice as if we could be kept inside up to three days,” fourth-grade
teacher Lori Frank said. That preparation includes having supplies of medication,
sleeping mats, prepared activities and food.
“The MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) are made for a guy burning 5,000 calories
a day. We would serve them in kid-size portions,” Sebastian said. “Overall,
our concept here would be to run as normal a weekday as possible.”
Staff members are trained in first aid or as medical responders,
and the school remains connected to the outside world.
“We communicated to Morrow County during the hour-long drill ...
and have four different ways to do that,” Sebastian said.
Other schools in the area also held their CSEPP drills yesterday.
Secretary Judy Kinyon at Rocky Heights Elementary said, “It went
great.”
At Umatilla High School, Principal John Thomas said students “were
well-organized and under cover in less than 2 minutes.”
Irrigon Junior/Senior High school held their drill Monday.