Chapter Twelve: Had this been an Actual Emergency

Chapter 12 – Had this been an Actual Emergency

Here is what we practice in the Northeast: fire drills. In schools and at work we learn to walk calmly and quietly out of the building using the correct exit and following the approved route as highlighted on a map hanging by the door. Principals and managers usually schedule fire drills for nice days, especially unseasonably warm days in late winter. No one ever expects a real fire, so the drills aren’t frightening, at least they weren’t before 9/11.

Here in Florida we practice fire drills but we also practice, tornado drills, hurricane drills and armed evil intruder/mad bomber drills. Fire drills are just like in the north: the orderly departure, counting heads to be sure all are present and moving away from the hypothetically burning building. Prospect staff and students do surprisingly well with fire drills.

For hurricane and tornado drills, step one is to get all the students who are in portables into the cinderblock building. The faculty develops a plan, but it means doubling up and in some cases, tripling up on classes. This isn’t too bad for a quick drill, but every time we have a tornado warning or even a watch, we have to move the students from the “tornado bait” portables into classrooms. There are many variables to take into consideration when combining these classrooms. Several of our students have restraining orders against each other and legally they are not supposed to be on the same campus, and definitely not in the same classroom. We can’t move the elementary classes (both in portables) into a room with Tony, our resident 13-year-old child molester. Depending on the week, we have certain students who are at war with other students and they’d like nothing better than to take advantage of the chaos to settle some scores.

Once the students are in the rooms, there is a protocol that must be followed. For both hurricanes and tornados, everyone must move away from the windows. We don’t really worry much about practicing for a hurricane since meteorologists can predict them in advance with enough accuracy to close schools before students arrive, but tornados often spring up with little warning. For a tornado, after students move away from the windows, they must crouch under desks in the center of the room (similar to my childhood drills during the Cuban Missile Crisis except for those drills we crouched in the cloak room – no cloak rooms in Florida).

Sure fire recipe for disaster: put too many prone-to-misbehave middle schoolers in a room together and tell them to crawl under the desks. In addition to illicit displays of affection, unwanted touching of a sexual nature, pokes, pushing and wrestling, there are always a couple students who decide this is the perfect time to go AWOL and as the maybe-a-tornado winds whip, these children run around campus laughing at the sky, daring the weather to defeat them. One deputy, just before a drill, tells the students if they run outside during a tornado drill they will be arrested and charged with a felony. Only the most gullible believe him.

The most frightening drills are the armed evil intruder/mad bomber drills. For these drills we don’t move students out of their portables, in fact when the alarm is sounded and the word is spread (“Code Red”), everyone who isn’t already in a classroom must go to the nearest classroom, portable or cinderblock. We can’t announce “code red” on the walkie-talkies since the theory is the walkie-talkies may be operating on a bomb detonating frequency so an alarm is sounded by Haven High on north campus, but since the south campus can’t hear the alarm, someone (usually the principal) has to go from class to class to spread the word. Once the alarm is sounded and word is out, no students may be admitted to any classroom and no door may be opened to anyone, the principal included (someone might have a gun to her back, the deputy explains) except uniformed police officers (who presumably know how to avoid getting guns in their backs). During the drill no phones, walkie-talkies or other communication devices may be used. All lights are turned off and students must be silent and try to make themselves invisible so the classrooms appear empty and not good hostage taking locations. The objective is to fool any weapon toting bad guys. During these drills, public school officials come to our campus to time us and to try to tempt teachers into erroneously opening doors. We train well for this drill and pass with flying colors. But visualizing the need to use this skill in a non-drill scenario is troubling.

This stranger/danger drill does not seem as unlikely to become real as my Northeast fire drills. Within an 18-month time span, there was a shooting a couple miles from school which resulted in the death of one student’s brother, two banks within a mile of campus were robbed and a murderer who escaped from prison was spotted a few blocks from school. We became aware of each crime when we heard the tell-tale, rhythmic din of police helicopters as they circled the sky above our campus. We could always count on our deputy to provide details of the crime and descriptions of the criminals (he characterized one bank robber as either “a man dressed like a woman, or a very ugly, manly woman”). So we all take the hostage scenario seriously and unlike the hurricane/tornado drills, our students don’t fool around or bolt from classrooms for this drill. I suspect more than a few have nightmares about the possibilities

In a post-drill debriefing, Stone quips that any evil intruder/mad bomber foolish enough to take any of our students hostage, would quickly learn two things: their parents don’t care and in fact, don’t want them back and moreover the misery and torment inflicted by prison guards pales in comparison to what our students are capable of. In desperation, according to Stone, the hypothetical hostage takers would dial 911 to turn themselves in.

As usual, Stone’s sarcasm provides some stress-relieving laughter from the team, although I can see from the expressions on a few of my faculty’s faces, an acknowledgment of the sad kernel of truth in Stone’s words. While most Prospect children have an adult who loves them, there are far too many for whom there are no parents, foster parents or guardians who genuinely care what happens to them let alone who would be willing to lift a finger to rescue them, and there are probably a few criminal parents who would not hesitate to use their child as a shield.