ROBERTSDALE, Ala. — Rifle and handgun fire shatter the silence within the hushed corridors of a local middle school. Terrified screams of surprise and fright fill the halls with a disturbing clamor, punctuated only briefly by ghastly silence as the shooter flees from one destination to the next. Again and again. He’s killing students.

In the gymnasium, bullet riddled and bloodied bodies strewn across the floor appear lifeless but for the muffled moans of agony from the suffering. On the other side of the building, a classroom full of students has been taken hostage. A child’s body lies sprawled in the hallway outside the class, an unsuccessful attempt at escape.

At a nearby exit, two frantic adults try deperately to breach the outer doors; banging, screaming, and prying hoping in vein to retreive their children before it’s too late.

A figure dressed in black from head to foot, with a mask and a submachine gun rounds the corner, stealthily coordinating each movement. With no visible cues, a group of six more identically dressed, heavily armed men materialize into the hallway behind him and fall in close behind, becoming a single bristling mass of men and weapons; a SWAT entry team.

Fortunately for them and everyone else involved, this was just a simulation. The gunmen were volunteers, the bullets were harmless paint rounds called Simunitions and the blood was fake. However, the atrocities that have occured on school campuses across the nation in recent years were very real.

This simulation, that took place last Thursday at Central Baldwin Middle School was a collaborative effort between the Baldwin County Emergency Management Agency, the Baldwin County Board of Education, local law enforcment and first responders. The effort is funded by a Fiscal Year 2006 Grant Initiative by the Alabama Department of Homeland Security and the Baldwin County Commission.

According to Leigh Ann Ryals, director of the Baldwin County Emergency Management Agency, “When we started planning the scenario, we actually came to the school. We walked through so we could get an idea of the layout of the campus, and where the kids are at any given time so we could actually plan a real life scenario that would involve what goes on here on a daily basis as well. That way when we started looking for the victims, we could make it as realistic as possible.”

When asked what the goal of the exercise was, Maj. Anthony Lowery of the Sheriff’s Department remarked confidently, “To save lives. At the end of the day, that’s what this is all about. We’ll do this exercise, and then perform an assessment on how it worked, and what areas we need to improve on or do differently. At the end of the day, that’s what all this money is spent for; is to save lives in the event that we have a crisis like this.”

This has been at least a year in planning, said Baldwin County Board of Education Spokespreson, Terry Willhite. It has brought every law enforcment agency in the county together in a massive coordinated effort for the first time ever.

“The magic of this isn’t the event itself,” said Willhite, “but what goes on before and after the event. A gun man runs through and shoots people. We actually assembled, as a second phase of this, all the public information officers of every hospital, the Emergency Managment Agency and the whole entourage together and decided who would say what when. This was also another first.

“As a part of this effort today, they will also (for a brief period of time) try to overwhelm the 911 call system, just to see what happens when 300 people call at one time. That has never been attempted before now.

“The people you see walking around with the ‘Evaluator’ vests on,” he explained pointing amongst the crowd, “some of those are professional consultants, and others like Janay Dawson, who is our Assistant Superintendent are here. There are many professionals here today specifically to watch what plays out. Every school has to have a crisis response plan. That has been ratcheted up because of Homeland Security’s response to the Virginia Tech massacre. As a matter of fact, the complete policy re-write after the incident. It required the Baldwin County to hire a full time employee dedicated to school saftey. His name is James Shoots and he is present today as well.”

When questioned about whether the Board was apprehensive about any aspect of the test or the potential effectiveness of the Board’s intended saftey plans, Willhite responded, “Well, nobody knows how it will work out. The goal of this exercise is to see what happens. There will be an event today. We don’t know how many shooters are involved, where they’re going to come from, what classrooms they’ll hit or very much else about it. Then we just see what happens. It is an unpredictable series of activities.”

When asked if law enforment were concentrating their efforts in any particular areas during the exercise, Major Lowery responded, “Today is also about cooperation. We’ve got Daphne, Fairhope, Orange Beach, Gulf Shores, Foley … we’ve got everybody together here today. In the event that there were a similar incident in Orange Beach one day, we may not have the exact same group of people involved, but everyone will be working together just like they are today. We’re trying to prevent what they experienced after Sept. 11, when none of the Federal agencies had never worked together. And the Feds are here with us today.”

When Safety Director James Shoots was asked how well the scenario was managed and what his impression of the response was, he replied. “Very impressive. It was something we needed to do and we found the few areas we needed to improve on. It was our first test of the kind and it was a resounding success.”