Cordova High Students Prepare for Scheduled ‘Disaster’

Thursday morning will erupt into a disaster zone at Cordova High School when students participate in a fake evacuation for their graduation drill. Over 100 students and emergency personnel will take part in the mock disaster Thursday morning at the Cordova High School at 2239 Chase Drive.

This drill is meant to demonstrate the skills of the school’s Teen Community Emergency Response Team, or CERT. The school’s Teen CERT program is the first in Rancho Cordova and within the Folsom-Cordova Unified School District. Teen CERT is part of the Sacramento Region Citizen Corps Council. The first Teen CERT class began in 2007, and six schools have implemented the program. There are 130 Teen CERT members across the region.

The drill will begin at 8:15 a.m. with an “explosion” in the culinary classroom. Then the campus fire alarm will activate, the students and staff will evacuate and a 911 call will be made. Then the school’s emergency system will alert parents.

This disaster scenario includes an overwhelmed emergency response system, so when 911 is called, emergency personnel will be busy working on a mock multi-casualty collision on Highway 50, and won’t be able to get to the high school immediately. Teen CERT members will be asked to go to the command center at the school to conduct “size-up, light search and rescue, triage and treatment,” a press release states. Thirty teens will perform search-and-rescue functions and more than 75 students will act as victims.

The fake scenario will help students use the skills they have been training for as well as show faculty and staff where possibly weaknesses is such a situation can be found in preparation for a true disaster.