Okay, I've thought A LOT about this, mostly over the course of all the emergency drills at my high school while sitting huddled in a dark classroom in hopes that some fictitious gunman would just assume the entire building was empty and leave. I just never posted it because the potential for being "profiled" as a "potential shooter" was too big of a risk for me to take.
My school had 4 basic modes of emergency operation. One of them existed pre-columbine, 2 were created in response to it, and the fourth was improvised during the DC sniper situation.
1 - Fire alarm - Exit the building in an orderly manner, wait in the parking lots, don't block the fire lanes. Teachers take roll in the parking lots to make sure everyone got out.
No real problems with this one, though getting a little farther from the building would be good for both any potential firefighters and safety.
2 - "Code red" - This is a reimplementation of "duck and cover." The entire class huddles up against the wall nearest the hallway, doors shut and locked, cover the windows in the door with paper to prevent from seeing in, close all windows and blinds, shut off lights. The idea is for the building to look empty. This plan was developed after Columbine. This is instituted in the following situations:
- Gunfire on-campus.
- Tresspasser in building.
- Fire on campus, but not main building
The problems with this are as follows:
- Okay, you come in to school with the intention of shooting people. There are people all over the place. Suddenly, you draw your gun, pick off a few people in the hallway. 45 seconds later, they come on the intercom and yell "CODE RED." People all scamper dutifully into classrooms and duck and cover. Okay, do you go home now? FSCK NO. You start shooting fish in a barrel. The doors may be steel, but the locks are much weaker... and if you have a shotgun, forget even having to blow out the lock, just take a shot at the glass bit. It'll blow enough of a hole in the wire mesh for you to reach through and open the damn door. Killcount +32. Rinse, repeat.
Also, a moderately powerful rifle like an AK47 or SKS could easily put a shell through the lockers and cinderblock and into the students huddled on the other side of the wall. Don't believe me? I've put a round through an empty propane tank (way thicker metal than a pansyass locker) that subsequentely passed through the cinderblock behind it.
3 - "Code blue" - This is an extension of the fire alarm status. It is used in bomb threat situations. Report to the parking lot, roll is taken, teachers indicate to the administation through means of either a green or red card that they have (or do not have) all their kids. If anyone is holding the red card, everyone waits until that kid is found. Once it's all green, the entire school proceeds to walk up to the stadium. If a subsequent threat is made regarding the stadium, the entire school walks approximately 1 mile BACK PAST THE SCHOOL AND PARKING LOTS to the parking lot of the local grocery store. This was established in response to Columbine, but refined when the school actually had a bomb threat and it was realized that the original plan didn't account for every student.
Problems are as follows:
Oh, gee. Who would want to blow up a school? Oh, a pissed off student. Guess who knows the procedures? A pissed off student. Guess what a pissed off student would do (if he were mildly intelligent and in the business of maximizing casualties instead of just destroying property)? Call in a bomb threat, blow up cars in the parking lots... Or just don't call in a bomb threat and just blow sh!t up (but blowing up a parking lot is a lot easier than blowing up a concrete structure).
Also, Code Blue is prescribed as the solution to a "large aircraft crash near or on-campus." Yes, by all means, send us outside where we can inhale jet fuel smoke.
4 - "Lockdown" - This was developed in response to the sniper douchebags. Essentially all the blinds remain closed, "and all the doors locked" and all field trips are cancelled.
Problems: Some classes are held in the shop outside, or in the trailers outside. Doors remain unlocked for those purposes. Also, the front door remains unlocked. If you want to get in, you can still walk in. The only difference is that you can't pop heads through the first floor windows.
Frankly, I think the kids at Columbine High had the right idea - RUN LIKE THE GDMF WIND (and if you get a strategic opportunity to either save some lives or die a hero, disarm one of the dirtbags and pop him and his buddies with their own firepower). All this "preparation" just ensures that if someone ever gets that fscked in the head again, and everyone does as they're told, that instead of a few dozen kids, you're looking at 100 casualties - MINIMUM (assuming sufficient ammunition). And don't tell the kids the bomb procedures. They'll be so skeered if it ever actually happens that they'll pay attention to what the teachers tell them. Unfortunately, kids are going to have to die en-masse before things are changed (again)
My school had 4 basic modes of emergency operation. One of them existed pre-columbine, 2 were created in response to it, and the fourth was improvised during the DC sniper situation.
1 - Fire alarm - Exit the building in an orderly manner, wait in the parking lots, don't block the fire lanes. Teachers take roll in the parking lots to make sure everyone got out.
No real problems with this one, though getting a little farther from the building would be good for both any potential firefighters and safety.
2 - "Code red" - This is a reimplementation of "duck and cover." The entire class huddles up against the wall nearest the hallway, doors shut and locked, cover the windows in the door with paper to prevent from seeing in, close all windows and blinds, shut off lights. The idea is for the building to look empty. This plan was developed after Columbine. This is instituted in the following situations:
- Gunfire on-campus.
- Tresspasser in building.
- Fire on campus, but not main building
The problems with this are as follows:
- Okay, you come in to school with the intention of shooting people. There are people all over the place. Suddenly, you draw your gun, pick off a few people in the hallway. 45 seconds later, they come on the intercom and yell "CODE RED." People all scamper dutifully into classrooms and duck and cover. Okay, do you go home now? FSCK NO. You start shooting fish in a barrel. The doors may be steel, but the locks are much weaker... and if you have a shotgun, forget even having to blow out the lock, just take a shot at the glass bit. It'll blow enough of a hole in the wire mesh for you to reach through and open the damn door. Killcount +32. Rinse, repeat.
Also, a moderately powerful rifle like an AK47 or SKS could easily put a shell through the lockers and cinderblock and into the students huddled on the other side of the wall. Don't believe me? I've put a round through an empty propane tank (way thicker metal than a pansyass locker) that subsequentely passed through the cinderblock behind it.
3 - "Code blue" - This is an extension of the fire alarm status. It is used in bomb threat situations. Report to the parking lot, roll is taken, teachers indicate to the administation through means of either a green or red card that they have (or do not have) all their kids. If anyone is holding the red card, everyone waits until that kid is found. Once it's all green, the entire school proceeds to walk up to the stadium. If a subsequent threat is made regarding the stadium, the entire school walks approximately 1 mile BACK PAST THE SCHOOL AND PARKING LOTS to the parking lot of the local grocery store. This was established in response to Columbine, but refined when the school actually had a bomb threat and it was realized that the original plan didn't account for every student.
Problems are as follows:
Oh, gee. Who would want to blow up a school? Oh, a pissed off student. Guess who knows the procedures? A pissed off student. Guess what a pissed off student would do (if he were mildly intelligent and in the business of maximizing casualties instead of just destroying property)? Call in a bomb threat, blow up cars in the parking lots... Or just don't call in a bomb threat and just blow sh!t up (but blowing up a parking lot is a lot easier than blowing up a concrete structure).
Also, Code Blue is prescribed as the solution to a "large aircraft crash near or on-campus." Yes, by all means, send us outside where we can inhale jet fuel smoke.
4 - "Lockdown" - This was developed in response to the sniper douchebags. Essentially all the blinds remain closed, "and all the doors locked" and all field trips are cancelled.
Problems: Some classes are held in the shop outside, or in the trailers outside. Doors remain unlocked for those purposes. Also, the front door remains unlocked. If you want to get in, you can still walk in. The only difference is that you can't pop heads through the first floor windows.
Frankly, I think the kids at Columbine High had the right idea - RUN LIKE THE GDMF WIND (and if you get a strategic opportunity to either save some lives or die a hero, disarm one of the dirtbags and pop him and his buddies with their own firepower). All this "preparation" just ensures that if someone ever gets that fscked in the head again, and everyone does as they're told, that instead of a few dozen kids, you're looking at 100 casualties - MINIMUM (assuming sufficient ammunition). And don't tell the kids the bomb procedures. They'll be so skeered if it ever actually happens that they'll pay attention to what the teachers tell them. Unfortunately, kids are going to have to die en-masse before things are changed (again)
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