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The Paly Voice

The Student News Site of Palo Alto High School

The Paly Voice

The Student News Site of Palo Alto High School

The Paly Voice

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Paly students take part in citywide disaster drill

"We are now experiencing a disaster drill. Please duck and cover, and then proceed to the football field," a female voice said over the public address system at 9:23 a.m. today.

Students complied, and upon reaching the field attempted to find their fourth period teachers to check in. A few students, selected to act as if they had been wounded, remained behind waiting for help to arrive.

"I had to stay in the classroom. One classmate stayed with me and we had to wait for half an hour for the response team to come, but I had a serious injury and my arm was bleeding profusely," Anita Bristol said. "When they came they drove me to the quad to a critically injured area where I sat. I would have died if the situation were real."

Palo Alto High School began the 50-minute disaster drill in conjunction with the City of Palo Alto. Paly, the chosen site of the earthquake simulation, was in high action as students evacuated to safety and emergency crews set up relief bases. Other simulations were held at fire stations, Cubberley Community Center, and other locations around the city. Coincidentally, the drill took place the day after the 99th anniversary of the 1906 earthquake.

The simulated earthquake, which occurred along the north end of the Hayward Fault, was a large-scale disaster with scattered incidents and injuries throughout the Bay Area and Palo Alto, according to police officer Ron Bonfiglio. Emergency crews swept though the campus searching for victims in the buildings, while aerial reconnaissance sent by the US Air Force Auxiliary assessed damage from above ground, searching for crack patterns, Red Cross volunteer Alice Mansell said.

At the football field, fourth period teachers took attendance and reported absences to the school’s administration. The drill absences were then checked against the list of students absent for the entire day, and the school did have a list of the injured students.

Paly’s open campus creates a large problem: during every drill, there are students who leave campus and go across the street to Town and Country or have preps during the drills. In a previous Voice story, Principal Scott Laurence said that students leaving campus was the "biggest flaw in the plan." The school encourages students to remain on campus as there are resources to take care of them in a real emergency. Paly has a three-day supply of food, water, first aid supplies, blankets, and "portable potties."

"People with first and second period preps wandered in, and we had to shoo them to the football field," disaster coordinator Ellie Slack said.

Meanwhile, in the 100 building, fire fighters were following the formal procedures laid out by the city’s Emergency Management Plan (http://www.pafd.org/emp/index.html).

The drill officially ended at 10:02 a.m., when everything was "all clear" and students were authorized to go back to class.

The entire school operated on a special schedule: all classes were reduced from 50 to 45 minutes long to accommodate the 40-minute drill.

The administration is now evaluating the school’s performance and will make necessary modifications to the emergency plan as necessary.

"I thought the drill went pretty well," Slack said. "This was our first time running first aid and search and rescue, and we had some problems but otherwise it worked quite well. We actually finished early; parts of the drill continued even after the students left (the field). I was very pleased."

However, some students thought the drill was ineffective and poorly run. "They (the administrative staff) were less strict than last week during a real bomb threat," senior Erik Pfleiderer said. "Some students wandered off from their teachers to socialize with friends, and a few ‘cut’ the drill entirely.

The following reporters contributed to this story: Moonway Lin, Adam Heeger, Alex Ochowicz, Jim Shen, Laura Mitchell, Eleanor Byler

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