As the nation grieves the loss of 19 children and 2 teachers from Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, there seems to be more questions than answers as to what happened. In the event of a local mass casualty event, how prepared are the schools and first responders to handle it?

Rusty Bates, director of safety for Limestone County Schools, routinely prepares students for a day they pray will never come.

“We have updated our Safe Defend equipment, and we run our drills in LIVE mode using that equipment,” Bates said. The drills are conducted at all grade levels Pre-K through 12.

Safety is a top priority when designing new buildings, such as the new Elkmont Elementary School, or renovating older buildings, such as West Limestone High School.

“We have designed all of our new buildings, additions to buildings and remodels with safety in mind. We have also retro-fitted our older buildings with safety in mind, including access controls on our front doors and card access on our doors,” Bates said.

The schools aren’t the only institution conducting drills in an effort to be prepared. Athens-Limestone Hospital has trained and has procedures in place as well.

“We have an highly trained EMPIT (Emergency Management Performance Improvement Team) that meets every other month to discuss different aspects of emergency response. Team members are trained through NIMS (National Management Incident System) and through advanced regional response training with the Center for Strategic Health Innovation,” Felicia Lambert, director of Marketing and Physician Recruitment at Athens-Limestone Hospital said.

“The team performs disaster drills two times per year with all staff and community emergency response such as APD and AFD. All drills are evaluated and critiques are performed to assist in performance improvement. All staff members are trained on disaster response in orientation, annual tests, memos and drills. We have policies and procedures for all different types of events available for viewing by all staff,” she said. “With any given situation, there will be patients that are appropriate to be cared for at ALH and others that will need specialized care from a tertiary care center. If the patients are deemed to need a higher level of care, coordination is made to get the patient where they will receive the most appropriate care, either by ground EMS or an Air Medical Service.”

ALH also has mechanisms in place to arrange for additional resources from the HH Health System to help in a situation that stretches its capacity. Those mechanisms can include additional EMS units from the surrounding area, helicopter flight services and equipment.

The News Courier also reached out to Athens City Schools, Athens Police Department and Limestone County Sheriff’s Office for comments and had not received a response at press time. We will update this story as more information is provided.