First Responders Visit Local Nevada High School
As Part of School District's Emergency Preparedness Program

First Responders arrived at Damonte Ranch High School today to participate in the Washoe County School District's pre-incident planning process.

Chris Smith, Director of Emergency Preparedness for the Washoe County School District, welcomed the participating first responders and said, "We are here today to ask for your input for our 2006-07 Critical Incident Response Program (CIRP) project. As you know we will be developing HTML preplans for each of our school sites and when they are complete the District will be providing your agencies access to the data for use for training or responding."

"We understand that when emergency responders arrive at a school, they are sometimes unfamiliar with the layout of the building. We hope that having this detailed information at their fingertips will save precious time and allow them you to do your jobs better and faster. Without doubt, we believe that this new technology developed by Visual Imagry could end up saving lives and protecting property," Smith explained.

"The finished HTML preplans will be designed to provide school police and authorized first responders with a virtual tour of each of our 94 schools and bus yards," said Smith. "We have a sample that was developed by our contractor, Visual Imagry, Inc. to share with you today. In your packet, we have included a sample pre-incident planning questionnaire and a tactical site survey for your review."

Herman Thomas, Damonte Ranch High School School Site Facility Coordinator, lead the first responders on a two-hour tour of the 258,190 sq. ft. facility where 1,612 students attend classes.

Some of the first responders that took advantage of the visit to Damonte Ranch High School were: SGT Keith Brown, Reno Police Department; SGT John Franz, Sparks Police Department; B.C. Ron Nordmeyer, Sparks Fire Department; SGT Tony Marconato, Sparks Police Department; Lt. Dale Richardson, WCSD Police Department; Deputy Tony Dilk, Washoe County Sheriff's Office; SGT. Phil Jones, WCSO Police Department and Project Evaluator Chuck O'Conner from North Vector, Inc.

Also attending were Dee Beaugez, President of Visual Imagry. She is the co-coordinator for the CIRP project and Jessika Savage, preplan photographer with Visual Imagry Visual Imagry's training team will also be developing the emergency management plan, as well as providing ICS/NIMS training for the WCSD School Board Trustees and members of the WCSD Emergency Response Code 33 Team.

Visual Imagry will also be responsible for coordinating the data ffor the school safety survey (pre-incident planning queastionnaire). They will also be developing a emergency response plan and providing Incident Command System (ICS) training. The grant requires that all information be compatible with the National Incident Management System.

The contract and all phases of the work will need to be completed by June 2007. At the conclusion of all work, the outside third part evaluator, Chuck O'Conner from North Vector, Inc., will audit the project

Link to WCSD web site - Board of Trustees Background