This morning Americas woke-up to the news of a Las Vegas mass shooting. This is the largest mass shooting in U.S. history. It is hard to imagine being a part of that crowd last evening as they attempted to flee while shots rained down on them from 32 floors above. While these events are tragic and the human cost is to great…we can learn from them.
This is an important opportunity to review your schools Large Group Event Response in your All Hazards Plan. Some of you might not have a Large Group Event plan yet and that is O.K. But now it is time to adopt one. For those who have one in place now, take a few minutes and review it. Ask yourself a few important questions:
Should tragedy show up at one of our large group events how would we help guide a mass evacuation?
Do we realistically have enough emergency exits to move people toward?
Is our staff equipped to help guide an evacuation?
Are our exits well marked and our visitors well informed of their location?
Let’s be perfectly clear. There are two important things to remember:
1. People need to move. Sitting targets are easier to hit than moving targets. We need to make every effort to prevent a stampede while getting people to move with purpose.
2. People will get hurt... they fall down steps, trip and get stepped on, bang their shoulders into door jams. Our goal is to minimize this and to help as many people get to safety as we reasonably can.
This is not merely a logistical problem or an organizational item that can be easily mitigated. When evil or tragedy shows up it quickly becomes an emotional and primal response where people display some never before seen behaviors; some our noble while others are vicious and based in absolute fear and self-preservation. While we can prepare and attempt to keep people calm we cannot absolutely control every person’s movements and actions but that doesn’t stop us from trying.
Review the attached plan large group event scenario 12182014-1 to help begin your conversation.
This is John Baker for safetysolutions4schools.com