Lessons from Columbine:
"Just minutes after the first explosion of a pipe bomb on the roof of Columbine High School, the entire 911 phone system at the Jefferson County PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point) became overwhelmed. During the first hour and forty minutes, 119 calls were received via 911, with an additional 114 received in the subsequent three hours. In addition, non-emergency lines quickly reached capacity. These numbers reflect a 2,000 percent increase in the average call volume. In addition, many calls were taken by surrounding agencies when the county's system reached capacity.
Adding to the call volume were the calls from the media persistently seeking any and all information they could get, even to the point of calling 911 knowing they would get through to someone. Within the first 12 hours, 339 phone calls were received from the news media alone. These calls continued for weeks at an alarming level from around the world.
All phone systems were impacted. As soon as the first media report, conventional phone circuits became completely overloaded in the immediate area of Columbine, and all of the Denver Metro area experienced similar problems once the story broke nationally as family and friends called to assure that loved ones were accounted for and safe.
Immediately, cell sites reached overload, rendering cell phones virtually useless by first responders. Initially, most of the cell traffic was from students and faculty who were affected. Even when COW's (Cell On Wheels) were brought in, they too reached capacity very quickly, as news media took up a large portion by locking into a connection with their news room and maintaining it for hours.
Without question, the hardest obstacle faced that day, both at the scene and at the various communication centers that were involved, was dealing with the tremendous amount of information. Information was coming from phone calls both inside and outside of the school. Students were relaying information to law enforcement officers and firefighters. Parents, friends and other jurisdictions were calling to relay information they had received from students barricaded inside the school. School officials also had information they were receiving from staff members over their own two-way radio system. From every direction, command staff was bombarded, and much of the incoming information was out of sequence, unclear and conflicting. Making sense of it became extremely difficult. For example, in the first six minutes, law enforcement construed that there were six to eight shooters based on the information they received. In the end, as we know, there were only the two shooters, Dylan and Eric, randomly and rapidly moving throughout the school firing their guns, throwing grenades and setting off pipe bombs. "
The Impact of Governance, Operations and Technology on Critical Emergency Response: Lessons from Columbine
By: Chuck Burdick, former
Operations Chief
Littleton Fire Department
Columbine CO
DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
10 comments:
It seems the ones that impacted this the most was the media. Read the paragraph that says , Most of which was taken up by the media.
Congratulations for posting this information, Joe. The data speaks volumes and addresses what can happen when well-meaning parents and media compete for first dibs on the latest information in a school crisis.
i tried to reply to the lock down post, but my response was not posted.
parents, if you want to send your kids with a cell phone for emergency contact, fine. block calls and texts, incoming and outgoing, from everryone but your number(s). & don't get a camera phone. problem solved.
But don't you know Inquiring minds around the world have got to know sec by sec updates???? What we used to get in an hour each night is now 24 hours a day 7 days a week..
9:44
Your proposal is very sensible. It would meet the need of having emergency contact with one's parents. However, that is not the point. Kids want their cell phones 24-7, parents can never say no to kids, parents and kids pressure the Bd., and kids get what they want. The percentage of calls and texts that have anything to do with emergencies is near zero.
I'm glad you posted this Joe.
When I posted yesterday against cell phones in school and discrediting one parent's statement about the phones, I wanted to mention Columbine but chose not to.
Even though I was not affected directly and personally by the tragedy there, it does affect me emotionally when I think about it.
Thank you for once again pointing out that a lot of these people posting on here have very short memories!
There is NO place in schools for student cell phones. Period!
While I completely agree that cell phones should not go to school with YOUR (because mine do not have cell phones) children, I do have concerns that the school my child attends, the same school I attended, has taken out all pay phones for student use. When I was a teen, I called my parents to pick me up after band and softball practices. What are my kids to do now? Use a friends cell phone?
Parents should monitor what is coming and going from a child's cell phone. It's disgusting how many girls are sending nude photos these days.
1;27 I totally agree! Both my children have cell phones... I monitor them everyday, looking for inappropriate stuff. I also check their phone records to ensure they are not being used inappropriately throughout the school day! I rely on my children having phones so they can contact me when they are ready to leave school. If they stay at school late and walk out the doors, they are locked out. This has happened to my children on more than one occasion. The only reason I bought my children phones was because in the same week, two years ago, my son (in HS) was locked out when an identical car pulled in and he walked out thinking it was me (and it was freezing and dark outside)and my daughter(then in the 4th grade)went on a field trip...I knew she was going to be late coming home, and the permission slip said she would be home around 6, well at 8pm I was calling the police because my child wasn't home and the bus garage and school didn't know where she was!!! It ended well, but not a risk I am willing to take anymore!!
This is the 21st century. Like it or not, cell phones are here to stay.
Trying to make us regress back into the 20th century is not going to work. As someone else pointed out, most of the pay phones have been removed, making the possession of a cell phone even more imperative.
If the problem is insufficient capacity, then let's increase the capacity of the system. Trying to ban or limit the use of the phones themselves is very short sighted thinking indeed.
Many college campuses have adopted mass text-messaging systems to deal with such emergencies, since events like Columbine and more recently, shootings at places like Virginia Tech.
There is no reason why high schools can't learn to implement similar protocols, since attendance at high schools is supposedly a pre-requisite to attending university.
Let's focus on correcting the cause of insufficient communication capacity, instead of trying to cover up the symptoms.
Dadio has it right and most of the resonders are wrong... like the posting author. The fact is, in any crisis the communications networks get bogged down and first responders always get conflicting information. But I can tell you they'd rather have conflicting info than no info. Your solution would have meant that during Columbine, only the news and adults would have been using the cell network meaning that valuable information the kids had access to would have been unavailable to police. Foolish, foolish, foolish.
And another thing, not all emergencies at school are of Columbine level. A student leaves her trumpet at home for a concert she needs to perform in for the school play. Without a cell phone, she has to get excused from class, go to the office and ask for permission to use a phone. With a cell phone, she can contact a parent, a sibiling or someone else in her network to help solve the problem and not let her classmates down. She solves her own problems instead of remaining dependant on adults.
Folks, owning a cell phone today is like owning a bike used to be for us. It is the means of socialization and is far safer.
But perhaps you "cell phone banners" should get on the school board and ban all the technology because you didn't need it, after all, and you're doing fine. If you do, I suggest you also mandate that every kid is issued a bucket of sand and whenever they face a 21st Century skill, technology or setting, they can just shove their heads in the sand the way you have. Instead of banning technology, teach responsible use.
-Fred
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