Noah Johnson Daily Press Emergency medical technicians check on one of the persons portraying a deceased shooter outside a classroom at the Gladstone High School during an active shooter drill Tuesday.

GLADSTONE — Local first responders teamed up for a county-wide training exercise at Gladstone High School. Several local and state agencies collaborated for an active shooter drill Tuesday, a months-long project to prepare for a tragedy that hopefully never comes true.

Gladstone Director of Public Safety Ron Robinson said this exercise has been in the works for several months. He said the exercise started as a tabletop experiment before scaling it up to a live-action event.

“It evolved into doing a county-wide training exercise, which you see here today — (we have a) mass casualty at the Gladstone High School. It involves just about any entity that you could see in Delta County here, from law enforcement to medical personnel to school staff,” Robinson said.

The exercise involved several agencies, including Gladstone Public Safety, Gladstone School District, Michigan State Police, Delta County Sheriff’s Department, Escanaba Public Safety, Delta County Rescue Task Force, Delta County Central Dispatch, Delta County Emergency Management, Rampart, Masonville Township Volunteer Fire Department and Gladstone Volunteer Fire Department.

The schedule for the event included comprehensive safety briefings for all actors, controllers, safety officials, observers and the media.

The exercise was meant to feel as real as possible, so responding agencies were unaware of the details of the scenario until it was announced by dispatch. First responders were encouraged to react as if it were a real-life event. The actors who played injured and uninjured victims were encouraged to call out for help and act distraught as personnel moved through the building.

“I didn’t want to choreograph everything,” Robinson said.

“That just defeats the purpose. We wanted it to be as realistic as we could to see how it all played out and then develop a better plan from there.”

The scenario involved two active shooters at separate ends of the school. First responding officers were tasked with eliminating the threats and securing each part of the building before ushering in medical personnel to assist with the wounded. The responders received the call over the radio and left the Sports Park (staging area) to engage the threat. For safety purposes, officers left their on-duty weapons secured in their vehicles before trading out for Airsoft guns at the entrance. The first responding officers began sweeping the building as another unit was en route to assist. Once both shooters were confirmed to be eliminated, officers escorted medical personnel through the school to tend to the victims. The civilians and victims were then escorted to a reunification center in an undisclosed location. After eliminating the shooter, saving the injured and securing the property, officials completed the exercise.

“I think it’s going good, again every entity had their own plan up until today but this is the first time that we’ve actually put those plans together and I think it went pretty well,” Robison said.

Robinson added that while training is necessary, he never would have thought that it would be necessary in a school setting.

“I’ve been in this job almost 31 years and we’ve always trained for mass casualty incidents but unfortunately in today’s day and age, you know, you wouldn’t think of a school – you know, you think of a school as being a secure area, but we know that’s not the case nowadays. It hasn’t been for several years,” Robinson said.

He added that the department wishes it didn’t have to prepare for something like this, but it is vital to protecting the community.

“It’s not something that we necessarily want to have trained for, but we do because it’s real life. It can happen anywhere,” he said.

Robinson emphasized the importance of being prepared for the worst, should a mass casualty occur at a school.

“It’s a shame but we have to prepare for that – these kids are our future,” Robinson said.

He added that the department will continue county-wide exercises yearly to ensure each agency is well-prepared. Robinson said he is also working on a plan to speak with parents and families about the steps first responders will take should something like a mass shooting occur.

“(We’ll) tell them what we just went through with the training that we did and answer any questions that they may have. And just to let them know, should something happen at the Gladstone School System – we all hope it doesn’t but just kind of give them some information as far as what to expect if something does happen,” Robinson said.

Gladstone Principal Andy Jacques reacted to the exercise, saying he believes it went well.

“I thought it went really smooth. There’s gonna be some things that we want to change and be able to look at to keep our kids even more safe than we already are, but (it) went really smooth,” Jacques said.

He said he hoped the training helped prepare staff for a mass casualty situation.

“We had a lot of meetings throughout this past year and there was a lot of scare, a lot of worry, but I think doing something like this will take away a lot of the worry and, it will show them what they will do in that moment’s time. And I think we’re going to prepare them as much as possible to keep these kids safe,” Jacques said.

He said that the aspect he sees needing attention is the response time.

“My worry (is) always the response time and the scare for staff to make that phone call,” he said.

Robinson echoed Jacques, saying they will now work to identify ways to improve aspects of their response.

“I’m kind of looking at (it) from the outside here that we need to get better at getting our rescue task force into this building,” Robinson said.

Other than that, both Jacques and Robinson agreed that the exercise went well.

“It went about as well as I can expect here, and again the overall was we knew it wasn’t gonna be flawless, but our overall goal is just to patch those holes that we may see in this plan and that’s what’s happening right now,” Robinson said.

On Aug. 22, the participating agencies will reconvene to debrief on the exercise.

“We’ll talk about what went good and what went bad, and we’ll go on from there,” he said.

Robinson and Jacques said they both want to extend their gratitude to all of the participating agencies as well as the volunteers.

“I’m very pleased at the turnout that we have. A lot of people (are) in a voluntary status here that volunteered their time, and again, I think that it’s only going to benefit guys for years to come,” Robinson said.

He added that the event garnered more support than he originally thought.

“I just want to thank everybody who came out here today and volunteered,” Robinson said. “We got a great turnout, I never expected it to get this big.”

Jacques added that the collaboration between the school and public safety has been a success.

“We are great partners with Gladstone Public Safety and all the other entities, and we love having them in the building, and we’re going to do everything possible for our Gladstone families to keep our kids safe,” he said.

Participating agencies will meet again on Thursday for a debriefing on aspects that went well as well as areas that can be improved upon.