FLORENCE, SC (WBTW) – Wilson High School conducted an evacuation drill Wednesday morning, moving all students to the Florence Center with the help of first responders and law enforcement.

Florence School District One Spokesperson Pam Little-McDaniel says the school-wide evacuation drill “has been in the planning stages for quite some time,” and was not in direct response to the recent school shooting in Florida that killed 17 innocent students and staff members.

The drill began at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday and involved the Florence County Sheriff’s Office, Florence Police Department, first responders, Florence Center officials and Wilson High School students and staff. During the drill, all students, faculty and staff were transported by bus from the school to the Florence Center.

“The drill is a part of Florence One’s evaluation of its emergency preparedness procedures,” said Little-McDaniel. “The safety of students in Florence One Schools is our number one priority. Today’s drill has been in the planning stages for quite some time.”

School officials say parents were notified of the drill by phone and reminded that the Florence Center would act as the reunification site.

“In case of an actual emergency, each school campus has a designated reunification site if a school must be evacuated,” Little-McDaniel added.

Little-McDaniel said previous evacuation drills have been conducted at Timrod Elementary, Sneed Middle, and West Florence High School. The goal of the drill is to ensure that students and staff know what to do in case of an emergency and to familiarize students and staff with the process of evacuating a school campus in case of an emergency.

In the event of an emergency, schools leaders and first responders will set up the mobile ‘incident command center’ anywhere in the district.

“Parents go where their students are. When they come all of our staff has been trained so we know exactly how many students that we can release every two minutes,” said Dr. Lionel Brown, Florence School District One Assistant Superintendent of Administrative Services.

District leaders say Florence One is the first in the state to have a mobile command center.

The top three priorities of the FSD1 Incident Command Center:

1.       Hold student information for student checkout by parent or guardian

2.       Provide healthcare to students

3.       Monitor video footage from the school

“When [parents] they turn their students over to us. They are saying to us, this is all that I have,” explained Brown. “We have to take the same care that they would as a parent. In order to do that that means we have to train, we have to retrain and continue to train to make sure that we are at the highest level of proficiency at all times.”

Brown says the district acknowledges in the event of an emergency, things will not be as ‘orderly’ but school leaders say they are confident they are as prepared as possible.

The tentative plan is to have an evacuation drill at an elementary and middle school next, no word on when that will happen.