Mar. 15th, 2018 05:16 pm
Gimme shelter
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muckefuckI spent most of today processing yesterday's lockdown. Having conversations with trusted colleagues helped. I'm still torn between the knowledge the preparation is the key to successfully navigating a crisis and the fear that putting an active shooter situation on a level with natural disasters normalises paranoia. There are some protocols which are applicable to any emergency situation, and we could always use more drilling in those. But there are some which are unique to a scenario where a person with a deadly weapon is deliberately trying to kill you.
Chief among these seems to be liability. We all accept that in an emergency situation, part of our responsibility is getting patrons to safety. But in our active shooter training, we were specifically enjoined not to do that. So when the message came through to "take shelter", we found ourselves rudderless. I don't know where my boss ended up going. My initial thought was to head to the basement, but that requires moving through a large open corridor, so my second thought was simply to remain at my workstation, which is reasonably out-of-the-way and surrounded with movable obstacles.
And then there was the confusion over what our actual level of alertness was. My colleague at the next cubicle over and I were bantering with each other while I amused myself flipping a coin to fill out March Madness brackets. Little did we know that in the next department over, a hundred people were taking shelter. We didn't know because they were entirely silent. Meanwhile, another colleague who chose to remain in the department got a personal call and so--in accordance with departmental policy--went out into the hall take it.
The call turned out to be a hoax (technically a swatting so--to quote a friend--"still at least either attempted homicide or reckless endangerment, just using cops as the means"), so ultimately what we experienced was a very realistic drill. And as with any drill, it helped us spot flaws (such as the fact that none of the contracts--from the café attendant to the guys pouring concrete outside--received the direct alerts the rest of us were getting every 10-15 minutes) which are doubtless already being discussed so that the system can be tweaked. But the feelings unearthed by it are all very real and still more or less our own responsibility to process. (On a personal note: One more opportunity to keenly feel the absence of a life partner I could turn to.)
Chief among these seems to be liability. We all accept that in an emergency situation, part of our responsibility is getting patrons to safety. But in our active shooter training, we were specifically enjoined not to do that. So when the message came through to "take shelter", we found ourselves rudderless. I don't know where my boss ended up going. My initial thought was to head to the basement, but that requires moving through a large open corridor, so my second thought was simply to remain at my workstation, which is reasonably out-of-the-way and surrounded with movable obstacles.
And then there was the confusion over what our actual level of alertness was. My colleague at the next cubicle over and I were bantering with each other while I amused myself flipping a coin to fill out March Madness brackets. Little did we know that in the next department over, a hundred people were taking shelter. We didn't know because they were entirely silent. Meanwhile, another colleague who chose to remain in the department got a personal call and so--in accordance with departmental policy--went out into the hall take it.
The call turned out to be a hoax (technically a swatting so--to quote a friend--"still at least either attempted homicide or reckless endangerment, just using cops as the means"), so ultimately what we experienced was a very realistic drill. And as with any drill, it helped us spot flaws (such as the fact that none of the contracts--from the café attendant to the guys pouring concrete outside--received the direct alerts the rest of us were getting every 10-15 minutes) which are doubtless already being discussed so that the system can be tweaked. But the feelings unearthed by it are all very real and still more or less our own responsibility to process. (On a personal note: One more opportunity to keenly feel the absence of a life partner I could turn to.)