With enough food and emergency supplies to accommodate the entire student and staff population for three days, Palo Alto High School is a safe place to be in an emergency situation.

Water, dehydrated food, first aid supplies, canopies, blankets, and other provisions are stored in easily accessible containers behind the photo building for emergency situations that could require staying at the football field for more than one day. "We have to depend on ourselves," said Ellie Slack, a math teacher and emergency site principal at Paly. Slack is the district site principal for Paly in an emergency situation, and is responsible for emergency preparedness supplies.

According to Slack, supplies are checked and replenished annually. Outdated water is thrown out and expired food is exchanged for fresh provisions. "Food and water will last for three days, with a declining student population," said Henry Neugass, a Palo Alto parent and the PTA representative concerned with emergency preparations. The plan depends on students getting picked up by their parents. "It is extremely difficult to predict what high school student populations will do in an emergency. Some PAUSD planning assumes most high school students will leave campus immediately, which would imply that high schools would need very minimal food and water supplies."

Principal Scott Laurence said, "In an emergency situation, probably the worst thing a student could do would be to go home. We want to convince parents to please convince your children to stay with us. We have trained personnel and supplies." Laurence says the new plan established Oct. 15 involves students and staff evacuating to the football field, where parents or guardians could pick up their children whenever convenient.

Many students have periods without classes and commonly aren’t on campus for at least part of the day. "That’s [students leaving campus] the biggest fallacy in this plan," Laurence said. "We’ve got to get the community in agreement that your safety is really important. Our goal in life is for you to come back from Town and Country, come over here, and the teachers will care for you."

As administrators predicted, many students agree that they would leave campus if there was an emergency. Paly sophomore Melissa Tipton said, "If there were a fire I would go home. I don’t think the Paly system for emergency drills works. To get to the football fields we walk past areas that have glass, and a lot of people could get injured."

Paly sophomore Lily Feng said, "I would stay at school. I think there should be different evacuation spots because some people are so far away from the football fields though. I think they should maybe set one up in the parking lot too."

Lights installed on the football field at the beginning of the school year impose a possible safety hazard if they were to collapse. The lights passed the district-required EDA (Electronic Design Automation) safety test, however, in case they were to be a threat, there is a backup plan. "Plan B would be to transfer to the upper soccer fields," Slack said.

The current plan for supplies to be stored on school campus was installed in 1989, after the Loma Prieta earthquake. "No authorities for supplies were specifically cited in the plan, and everyone involved with the process has left the district, so we really have no idea how the supply lists were put together," Neugass said. The American Red Cross has guidelines for supplies to store at school for an emergency which includes 1/2 gallon of water per person per day for three days. According to Slack, Paly’s water supply contains 728 gallons. The Red Cross also recommends storing supplies sufficient to accommodate for three days, which Neugass claims Paly does.

An emergency drill Oct. 25 practiced the new emergency plan. "Given it was the first drill, I thought it went very well," Slack said. "The most important part was that everyone was out there. From the drill we were able to see that some things needed to be changed." Slack said that because of parked cars at the entrance to the field, traffic is a problem, and the parking spots will be marked off to avoid future impediment.

According to Neugass, there has never been a disaster at Paly in which the emergency supplies have needed to be rationed. Because of this, there is some concern as to whether or not the supplies are ample. "Some of the issue of adequacy [of the supplies] could be evaluated by doing in-depth practices of emergency procedures, but these are very expensive," Neaugass said.