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Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Students in Kathie Taylor's second grade class were prepared for the weather, as well as an earthquake, after an emergency-preparedness drill drove them out into a rainy Monday.
Disaster drill readies students
West Valley Elementary School plans for worst-case scenarios
By Sam Scott
As easily as opening an envelope, Cyndi Hutt found herself slipping into unconsciousness (or pretending to).
The sixth-grade teacher at Sunnyvale's West Valley Elementary School was taking part in a disaster drill the school held last Monday. As Susan Douglas, the school's principal, announced that a powerful earthquake had hit the region, teachers opened envelopes to learn how they and their pupils had fared in the imaginary shaker. Hutt apparently hadn't done so well.
She slumped in her chair, leaving her students to their own devices. Two stayed with her. The others evacuated to the playground after putting a red tag on the door to let rescuers know someone was inside.
"It's a good idea," Hutt said after regaining her wits. "The students aren't used to having an activity like that. They're used to having the teacher tell them what to do."
Chuck Corr of the Cupertino Union School District (which has four schools in Sunnyvale) said district schools are required to have large-scale simulations every two years, in addition to monthly fire drills required by state law. He said the drills supply a foundation which students can work from in case of the real thing.
"We do it so that on the day a disaster should occur, you're not starting from scratch," Corr said.
Though CUSD supplies some resources for the drill, most of the more than 600 students contributed $3 each to the PTA to buy supplies like the walkie- talkies.
Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Students at West Valley Elementary evacuated the building in an orderly fashion after a simulated 'disaster' struck in an emergency-preparedness drill last week.
After students evacuated out into the drizzle, search and rescue teams scouted from room to room, volunteer parents tried to wrest their children away from teachers, and stretchers shuttled injured people across the playground.
"It seems like there's been a real earthquake except for the fact that everything is still here," Amy Fredrickson, a cold 6th grader said.
Versimilitude was indeed present to a large degree. Principal Douglas dispatched orders into her walkie-talkie with urgency. A few of the injured kids really look pained. Search-and-rescue scoured the campus for missing students. A pair of buckets stood to the side, ready for latrine duty.
The students, meanwhile, seemed to be enjoying the event. Most of the kids were talking or reading before light rain forced many to gather under tarps.
"It's cool. We're missing class time," sixth-grader Alex Khazanedar said to the general agreement of his friends.
After some prodding, his classmate Steven Paul Stichler admitted the drill had more than social merit.
"It's cool. It gets us ready for the real thing," he said.
The school got good marks from Pat Jocius. the consultant the school employed to help run and observe the drill.
"I just think they did real well," Jocius said. She said the search and rescue teams and command center may have focused too much on the students and the classrooms. An injured student in a bathroom and a cook in the kitchen were only discovered after much time (and a couple clues) had passed.
Douglas, the principal, said the hitches benefited the experience.
"I'm glad it wasn't completely smooth," she said. "It wouldn't have been realistic."
Bob Crum, a volunteer acting as panicking parent, had high praise for the teacher who wouldn't let him take his child without permission.
"Kudos to the teachers," he said. "They knew the procedure."
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
