<I>Contributed photo</I><BR>Long Beach Principal Todd Carper supervises a comprehensive tsunami-evacuation drill last week during regional exercises that coincided with an actual tsunami scare.

PENINSULA – Students at the Peninsula’s schools got a valuable lesson last week during a Regional Coastal Crest Tsunami Drill conducted by the Office of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, according to Ocean Beach School District Boyd Keyser. The non-mandatory drill allowed local agencies to test their emergency preparation procedures and, in the process, teaching students what to do when a tsunami or earthquake strikes .

The district practiced a variety of procedures at each of its buildings, including the Early Childhood Center where pre-schoolers were either evacuated by bus to Hilltop School along with Long Beach Elementary students, or walked upstairs to shelter-in-place at the Long Beach building.

Students at Ocean Park Elementary were given the command to “duck, cover and hold” as they practiced their response to an earthquake. The earthquake drill was followed by a shelter-in-place drill in which students moved upstairs and staff prepared the building for a potential tidal wave.

Middle and high school students at the Hilltop campus went through a similar drill, vacating the lower level of the building to make room for other agencies that might need the space in case of a real emergency.

The drill began, Keyser said, when the Long Beach Elementary intercom crackled to life with Principal Todd Carper making the call, “Teachers, we are now initiating a drill, we will simulate having just received a tsunami warning, please initiate your evacuation procedures at this time.” Keyser said with “a precision usually reserved for marching bands and dance routines, teachers coolly and calmly led their students out of Long Beach Elementary school and into waiting buses as they vacated their building. Once on the bus, students and staff were hustled off to Hilltop School, where they filed into the new gymnasium to make sure all were present and accounted for.”

The drill was initiated by a phone call from the state’s Emergency Management Office to Keyser at 9:21 a.m. Sept. 29. Keyser then called Transportation Director Ben Mount requesting that bus drivers be sent to Long Beach to evacuate the building. Keyser contacted Carper initiating the evacuation and bus loading. Within 21 minutes, students had been loaded onto the buses and safely transported to the Hilltop campus.

“The drill went off better than I could have hoped for” said Keyser, “Carper and the students and staff at Long Beach did an incredible job. I was amazed that we could go from notification to being all accounted for at Hilltop in just 20 minutes.”

To add a little drama to the drill, Keyser said the district simulated a failure in the cellular and land line phones requiring the district to use its newly installed radio communication system. “We found out very quickly how important the VHF radios were to our ability to coordinate our efforts,” he said.

Keyser singled out Mount for getting the new emergency communications system in place. “Ben has really been the driving force behind getting us up to speed on this project,” he said. “There is no doubt our district is a safer place for kids and staff because of his efforts.”