Thursday, law enforcement, fire personnel and county officials participated in a mock emergency exercise to learn how to respond efficiently to emergencies such as an active shooting scenario.

The Emergency Management Center hosted the emergency exercise during a meeting at their headquarters in Poplarville.

“The success of handling any event is going to depend on this room and how we handle rumor and damage control,” Emergency Management Director and Fire Coordinator Danny Manley said.

The goal of these meetings is to improve the county’s emergency response by identifying and fixing their shortcomings in relation to equipment, training or policy issues, Manley said.

“If there is a disaster we go under a new form of government and run it out of this center and all our emergency agencies need to work together to solve the issue,” Manley said.

PRCC Director of Public Safety Doug Rowell led the emergency exercise by walking participants through a scenario where an active shooter threatens the campus of Pearl River Community College.

“I’m going to paint a picture, it’s Monday and overcast. There’s around 3,800 people, between students, faculty and staff, on campus on any given day,” Rowell said.

At 10:20 a.m. PRCC’s president, vice president and recruitment director received an email and Facebook message saying they should stay tuned to watch live events unfold at PRCC at 10:30 a.m. When the individuals clicked the link, a timer appeared counting down to ten minutes, Rowell said.

As the exercise unfolded, participants agreed PRCC officials should notify law enforcement immediately.

Shane Tucker, Pearl River County chief deputy, said law enforcement would respond quickly if there’s reason to believe the messages convey a real danger.

“We would have deputies and fire departments respond to the college to assist and talk to PRCC officials to see if there’s reason enough to start an evacuation process,” Tucker said.

Rowell said there are several evacuation methods at PRCC, including campus sirens and a mass notification system, which sends text messages and e-mails alerting everyone to evacuate the campus.

Participants agreed to use the mass notification system to discreetly alert students, faculty and staff about the threat.

“Once we’re notified of this situation it may be a 20 minute response time,” Picayune Police Department Capt. James Bolton said.

Rowell took the exercise further and said the shooter put up a live feed of a classroom at PRCC full of students unaware of the threat. Rowell said two students were shot.

“In case of an emergency, we have an emergency action plan at PRCC such as evacuation points and family reuniting to deal with serious issues,” Rowell said.

Manley said it’s important for every agency to work together as a team in case an emergency portrayed during the exercise occurs.

In the scenario, the shooter was shot after the school was evacuated. Officials agreed every school in the county should be evacuated or locked down if an event like this were to occur.

Units participating in the exercise, in addition to campus security, were the Poplarville Police Department, Picayune Police Department, Pearl River County Sheriff’s Department, Poplarville Fire Department, AAA Ambulance, Mississippi State Department of Health, Coast Electric, school districts from Pearl River County, representatives of local municipalities and county officials.

The Emergency Management Center plans to hold a hurricane preparedness meeting in August.