Staff Writer
A county agency, charged with planning for emergencies that hopefully will never happen, discussed last week the lessons learned in investigating several bomb threats phoned into the Madawaska Middle-High School. The Aroostook County Local Emergency Planning Committee Agency meets quarterly to discuss issues related to planning responses to various types of emergencies, including situations such as in Madawaska.
“What happens when the real thing happens — when there’s an active shooter in the schools,” said Vernon Ouellette, director of the local Emergency Management Agency. “It’s a very serious situation.”
During the meeting, the planning committee vice chairman, Norman Cyr, who is also the Madawaska Fire Chief, said that there were lessons learned during the Madawaska case.
During an initial threat on Tuesday, Feb. 26, the students were evacuated to the parking lot. However, Cyr said that teachers, using keys, were coming in through the back doors with students while police searched the building for a possible explosive device.
The students and staff, who were found in their classrooms were told to leave during the search, which took about two hours, Cyr said. Nearly 1,000 lockers were searched after that initial threat.
Three other threats were called to the school during the next day, Cyr said. Investigators were able to determine that the calls were coming from “pre-paid,” or “track” cell phone purchased locally.
One recommendation made during the EMA meeting was to collect cell phones from students in the morning and return them when school recesses in the afternoon.
According to published reports, a 17-year-old male was arrested Thursday in connection with the threats. It’s unknown whether the suspect was a student at the Madawaska school.
In other activity, the EMA began discussing a mock emergency exercise that is mandated by the federal Department of Homeland Security. The exercise is scheduled to take place later this year in Presque Isle, according to officials. It will include several scenarios, such as chasing suspects through a building and responding to an active shooter in a school,
The County’s EMA is located on Sweden Street and is charged with helping communities develop response plans to emergencies, such as hazardous waste spills and processing requests from the public information on hazardous chemicals in communities.
The office keeps reports on the types of hazardous chemicals that are stored with various businesses and industries around Aroostook County, which are required by law to file such reports with the EMA office.
Members of the local planning committee, which include rerpresentation from local and county police and fire departments and private industry, meet quarterly. The next meeting is scheduled on Thursday, May 29 at the Caribou Courthouse administrative hearing room at 1 p.m.
