Drill will transform Asotin Thursday

Summary

Anyone traveling through Asotin Thursday may be alarmed by what they see happening, as members of the Asotin-Anatone School District Response Team and emergency personnel practice a lockdown procedure.

Story Published: Aug 21, 2007 at 6:03 PM PST

Story Updated: Aug 21, 2007 at 6:20 PM PST

ASOTIN - If you are traveling through Asotin Thursday, it may appear something serious is going on.

Members of the Asotin-Anatone School District Response Team and emergency personnel will be practicing a lockdown procedure for much of the day.

School officials, along with Sheriff Ken Bancroft, met with members of the media Tuesday afternoon to help get the word out about what people can expect.

"You'll probably see some caution tape, yellow police tape around the building in places where we don't want people to get into,” said Clarkston Police Department Patrol Operations Commander Jim Smith. “We're going to have a safety area because we're not going to let any live weapons into the school. We're actually going to have people checking folks, our own folks coming in. They may see that. They're going to see some staging areas where there's going to be people set up on other areas and a lot of activity around the school."

Superintendent Greg Godwin said he is impressed by the cooperation of all the participating agencies. There will even be teachers involved, something unique to this particular training.

The exercise begins at 7 a.m. and should last until 2 p.m. Emergency personnel will be scattered throughout the entire city of Asotin. That is part of the procedure.

Those planning the training say it will look very real, but remind the public it is only a drill.

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