Preparing For The Worst Local Agencies Use Disaster Drill To Practice For Hostage Situations

Saturday morning’s hostage incident started late.

Rumors of gunfire at 9:29 a.m. An explosion.

Chaos. Confirmation of gunfire.

SWAT teams, sirens, gawking neighbors, rubber-necking motorists. Central Valley High School being evacuated.

This disaster drill is how the hometown readies for the possibility of another “Columbine” - a term that a spring day in a Colorado high school turned into a synonym for classroom carnage.

School’s no longer just reading, writing and arithmetic. Now it’s also respond, reconnoiter and remedy. The fundamental drill is the same: practice, practice, practice - until you know it by heart.

And that’s what nearly every Spokane County agency did on Saturday.

The Air Force was called in for this incident. Fairchild’s Survival School students posed as students at Central Valley High. Detectives from area law enforcement agencies pulled on hoods and ski masks, camouflage and olive drab and went as the bad guys and gals.

This was a politically correct mock disaster. Reporters were asked to refer to the perpetrators only as “The Group” or “Extremists.” No militia-like labels were allowed.

Spokane police, Spokane County sheriff’s deputies, Washington State Patrol, the county Emergency Management Department, Red Cross and firefighters from Spokane Valley Fire District No. 1 turned out to get the terrorists, defuse the bombs and save the survivors.

Neighbors were forewarned, with hand-delivered letters, so none mistook this as the real thing.

9:45 a.m.: Washington State Patrol confirms shots were fired and there was an explosion. A van reportedly delivered armed people to the school, Lt. Bruce Clark says. Little else is known.

A Sheriff’s Department car eases toward the back of the school, the driver barely peering over the dash, another officer running behind. More gunfire - “simunition” - the ‘90s name for blanks. Deputies with rifles dart for the building.

10 a.m.: Area hospitals are alerted.

10:10 a.m.: The Federal Aviation Administration closes the airspace. The media is asked to keep its airplanes and helicopters at home.

Central Valley was chosen because it is empty on a Saturday and easy to use, school district spokesman Skip Bonuccelli explained. But “what’s learned here can be applied at a supermarket, a church, a doctor’s office - universally.”

A hostage negotiation team is at the school. They have phone contact with the perpetrators. We don’t know their demands, the State Patrol tells reporters. Parents are asked not to try to contact their children via personal cell phone. Stay calm.

SWAT teams in sheriff’s green swarm the front of the school. A dark Suburban wheels into the south parking lot, disgorging a Spokane Police Department SWAT team. Members carry shields, a ladder, and make their way to an out-building.

One helmeted cop noses around the corner of the building.

“Come here,” he yells at a woman, lying on the school lawn.

“I’m dead,” she replies.

The luxury of mock exercises. Total communication.

The morning rolls on with more intensity. More hostage negotiators, bomb dogs, rumors of a bomb placed near a student.

Mock injured treated on the lawn of a nearby church. Busloads of children “mock” evacuated. Cops everywhere. Radios chattering.

“We want it to be stressful,” explained Dave Reagan, Sheriff’s Department spokesman. “We want to test people’s ability to cope.”

And, in the end, they only want to do it as a test.