Are the schools prepared to deal with a disaster?
The Palo Alto Unified School District has a multi-hazard comprehensive emergency plan. School sites have caches of emergency supplies, communications and trained personnel. When a disaster strikes crisis teams and/or a command center is activated to coordinate efforts of response and recovery. Amateur radio operators are assigned to every school site to assist with the communications between the schools; city emergency operations center and the school headquarter command center. Duck, cover and hold drills are exercised, as are fire drills. Police have been working with the school district extensively on developing the guidelines for a “Crisis Response” manual. Instructional memos and additional training is planned for the near future.
