Officials in Madison County hosted a community-wide training exercise to test and evaluate the emergency response of it's agencies in the event of a chemical disaster at the Blue Grass Army Depot.
Students at Clark Moore Middle School spent the first part of their Wednesday morning, in a mock training session....teaching them what they should do in the event of a major emergency at the Blue Grass Army Depot.
"You just want to make sure your plans stay current, uh, you have personal and staff changes, every year. You wanna make sure that the new people are prepared and the people that have changed roles are, knowing what their positions are and i wouldn't say it gets easier, it gets smoother," says Principal Larry Barton
During the exercise, the school was locked down and students were told to go to assigned places of shelter within the building.
"Well, we're located really close to the Blue Grass Army Depot and there are some chemical weapons stored there, so in the event something did happen and we had an emergency, we wanna make sure we're prepared," adds Barton
Some eku students and several staff members at Pattie A. Clay Hospital also took part in the exercise.
They practiced for what they should do in the event of a gas leak at the depot.
"It prepares us for thing such as national disasters and other emergencies that may take place that we're prepared for because of the chemical stockpile that we have here in Madison county," explains Jill Williams with the hospital.
Officials sounded all the emergency sirens in the county, along with sending alerts through cellphones and text messaging to practice the effectiveness of the area's response efforts.
