On Saturday November 19th, 2016 Vance County Public Safety agencies as well as emergency responders from our surrounding counties will be conducting a full scale active shooter exercise at Clarke Elementary School, located at 309 Mount Carmel Church Road, in Henderson.
Vance County received a grant in the amount of $20,000.00 through the Federal Homeland Security Exercise Program to conduct the training event, which has been in the planning stage for the past six (6) months.
It is our intent to make this exercise as realistic as possible while preserving the safety of all those involved. Simulated gun fire will be used as well as injury simulation (Moulage) to add realism.
The exercise will take place on Saturday rather than a regular school day due to the age of the students, however roughly 250 Vance County School’s personnel (many of them actual teachers) will be portraying students to further add realism to the scenario.
While we have conducted similar exercises to this in the past, each school is unique and offers its own unique challenges. Clarke Elementary was chosen as it is the newest school in the County and is probably not as well-known to our responders as some of the other school facilities.
Early preparation for the exercise will begin at 7:00 AM on that day with the exercise itself beginning later that morning. The exercise will conclude early in the afternoon on that same day. We would like to caution residents in the area that they may hear the simulated gunfire and would like to emphasize that they should not be alarmed by those sounds. Additionally, there will be a large public safety presence in and around the school for the duration of the event which will include law enforcement, EMS, fire and even helicopters, but again we would like to stress that this is all a part of the exercise.
Further, we will be closing off certain sections of the roads in and around the school to allow us to adequately test our perimeter control methods. Residents that live in the confined area will be contacted to make them aware of what is happening and they will be allowed to come and go if they should need to. Through traffic will be routed around the exercise venue until the event is over.
This exercise is NOT open to the public. Anyone not affiliated with one of the participating agencies who approaches the exercise area will be turned away. You do not have to get disheartened as you can easily navigate to this website and find easy ways to build yourself a relaxing time. It is unfortunate that we must prepare for such a horrible event but we owe it to our citizens and our communities to ensure that such public environments are as safe as possible. Through joint efforts such as this exercise we ensure that a coordinated response will occur during an actual event.
Contact: Brian K. Short
Phone: 252-438-8264