Via press release:
The City of Bismarck will lead a full scale community school shooter drill to test emergency preparedness, Wednesday, May 28 at Horizon Middle School beginning at 1:00 p.m. The drill and related activity is expected to end by 5 p.m.
The purpose of the drill is to serve as a mutually beneficial training exercise to practice and ensure the capability to respond to a “school shooter” incident with focus on the response and recovery actions that would be expected to take place within the first several hours of the incident. Students will not be involved in the drill, but there will be upwards of 100 adult volunteers taking part in the drill which will be staged in the morning and activated in the afternoon.
The drill is a combined effort amongst Bismarck Public Schools, Sanford Health, St. Alexius Medical Center, Metro Area Ambulance and city departments including the Police, Public Health, Fire, and Emergency Management.
Many partners are supporting the drill as mutual aid drill players including area law enforcement agencies and others such as the American Red Cross, Salvation Army, Crisis Care Chaplaincy and the 81st Civil Support Team, supporting drill logistics and training objectives.
Primary areas that will be exercised are the incident command system, communications, reunification, public information; emergency operations center activation, family assistance center and law enforcement operations; EMS – triage, treatment and transport and tracking of the “injured” and hospital operations.
During the drill Ash Coulee Drive will be closed to through traffic between Washington Street and Valley Drive from Noon until 5:00 p.m. No detour will be in place. Traffic should plan ahead and use alternate routes.
The drill will begin at 1:00 p.m., May 28. We want to alert citizens that THIS IS A DRILL. The drill will help test the community’s ability to respond to a “school shooter” incident. Citizens may notice increased activity near the school and hospitals with emergency response involving law enforcement, fire, EMS and others. We want them to know that there is no reason for concern. THIS IS A DRILL.
