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Campus bomb threat is just drill in Geauga
(by Joseph Koziol Jr. - June 30, 2010)
Campus bomb threat is just drill in Geauga
By JOSEPH KOZIOL JR.
The call came into the Geauga County Sheriff's Department last week telling emergency crews that the "smash is on."
Students, calling themselves SMASH, at the Kent State University's Geauga campus were upset over increasing fees and a question whether they would get courses needed for graduation.
The telephone call was a warning that more than protests were taking place there. Students were letting bombs speak for them as explosive devices were placed inside and outside the main campus building.
But the call and the bombs were only treated as real and did not pose the deadly threat that is always a possibility for police and fire crews that arrived on the scene.
The scene was played out at Burton Elementary School, rather than the college campus. It was a full-scale exercise that involved more than 80 law-enforcement officers and emergency responders from Geauga, Cuyahoga and Lake counties.
The drill was paid for through a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and provided responders with a chance to test their readiness for actual emergencies.
Officers were called on to help evacuate a building and then ensure that two bombs were located and disabled. Each unit, whether being called from Cleveland or Painesville, responded to the scene in what would be actual response time. At the end, officers reviewed what they had done and looked for ways to improve.
"We use the drills to weed out errors," Geauga County Sheriff Dan McClelland said. "You can't afford that in a real crisis."
Mr. McClelland said emergency responders often have only seconds to decide a course of action in real emergencies, such as the gasoline spill in Newbury Township two weeks ago.
These types of exercises, he said, provide an opportunity to test emergency crews that communities rely on. "It's a very, very good thing," he said.
The drill gives officials an opportunity to set up a command structure and test communications to ensure that forces will be ready when a real emergency strikes. "It's a great training opportunity to test seasoned guys as well as the new folks," he said.
He said officers annually also participate in "table-top" exercises, which take place in classrooms. There, officers are provided with scenarios and twists in those scenarios to test responses.
Brent Forman, an educator from Cleveland, served as an evaluator for the drill. "It's like sports," he said. "You play like you train."
Mr. Forman said similar training is occurring across the country to ensure that emergency forces are ready to respond in any type of emergency.
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