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WSR school conducts tsunami drill
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Posted on Sep 15 2008
More than 700 students, teachers and administrators from the William S. Reyes Elementary School took part in a tsunami drill yesterday morning.
“We want to make sure students are safe at all times,” principal Lynette Villagomez said.
The entire school population was able to get to the safe zone at Parks and Recreation in 20 minutes and 40 seconds—nearly 10 minutes faster than the 30-minute goal, she said.
The drill was part of Disaster Preparedness Month.
Officials from the Emergency Management Office, Department of Public Safety, Homeland Security, Red Cross, and the Fire Department took part and critiqued the performance afterward.
The drill was recommended as part of the school’s accreditation, and administrators asked if the drill could be evaluated. Villagomez said.
Villagomez said the students were told there would be a drill some time in the morning. Overall, she said, the children did well.
“Some kids were running at first, but that’s something we can fix,” she added.
She said administrators realized radios would be helpful to have during drills. It would make it easier to verify everyone’s location instead of having to physically run there. Villagomez said she would like to conduct a tsunami drill every quarter, as the school does for fire drills. There are procedures for an earthquake but no drills set yet, she said.
