Windham Dare to Adventure students participate in active assailant exercises

Last month, the Portland Police Department in cooperation with area public safety agencies including the Windham Police Department (WPD), held an active assailant exercise at Deering High School. An important part of this exercise was to test the processes outlined in the National Incident Management System. Students from the Windham Middle School Dare to Adventure program, a cooperative program with the WPD, played a very important role.

Left to Right Top:    Ryan Bernard, Ezra Foster, Josh Noyes, Levi McDonald

L to R top:    Ryan Bernard, Ezra Foster, Josh Noyes, Levi McDonald

L to R bottom:Haley Atherton, Riley Small, Morgan Hammond

 Missing student from the photo but participated:  Jacob Chouinard

A large part of any natural or manmade disaster, large public gathering or critical incident is to have a system in place that manages people and equipment needed to support ongoing operations and recovery efforts.

The process of “staging” personnel and equipment allows fresh troops to take over for the initial responders and allow them time to rest before reactivation. The Dare to Adventure students were an integral part of the Staging process, assisting the Incident Management Assistance Team (IMAT) from the Cumberland County Emergency Management Agency.

During the exercise, the students managed the task of signing in over 130 exercise participants into the staging area. The students used computers and clipboards and provided exercise managers with a real-time view of all the people committed to the exercise. All this information was entered into the computer and then the students rechecked all the names to ensure accuracy.  This is a very difficult undertaking and all the students did a tremendous job making sure the system worked.