Officials and organizers from the Illinois Emergency Management Agency met at 3 p.m. Tuesday to discuss and evaluate the outcome of their drill earlier that morning.

President Bill Perry said the morning’s operations were effectively seen from different perspectives, with multiple state agencies working together during the drills.

Perry said the drill necessitated involvement from state, Charleston and Mattoon police and fire departments, and allowed the university to activate their phone trees and alert system.

The agency ran a multitude of scenarios throughout the day, all with different layers.

Gary Hanebrink, Eastern’s safety officer, said the drill allowed the implementation of all fire and police squads.

Hanebrink said the drill focused on “emergencies within emergencies” in order to prepare responders for all possible scenarios.

Hanebrink also said the drill, which is planned once a year throughout Illinois, was the largest the agency has put together.

Hanebrink described the drill as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Perry said the drill was meant to represent the fact that “anything can happen at anytime.”

“The drill got to prepare people for scary thing that can happen,” Perry said.

Hanebrink reflected on an actual scenario on Eastern’s campus last year, in which a suspicious package was dropped at a building on campus.

Hanebrink said a Charleston hazmat team and a Champaign bomb squad were called in to neutralize the package.

Perry said the response to the real threat was great, citing the quickness of the Champaign bomb squad as a good indicator of the university’s response.

“We had a scare, and it could have happened,” Hanebrink said. 

Doug Downey, the exercise director for IEMA, said the agency started planning the drill two years ago.

“We do these things to learn from mistakes,” Downey said. “It went very well.”

Downey said the agency will spend the next few weeks collecting and analyzing evaluations, developing plans for improvement and sharing findings with other agencies.

Fire Chief Pat Goodwin, of the Charleston Fire Department, agreed that things went well.

Goodwin said there were not many mistakes.

“I wouldn’t classify them as mishaps but as learning experiences for each agency,” Goodwin said.

Goodwin also discussed how the use of the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System helps ensure safety and backup in an emergency situation.

The system is a resource that requests resources from the state, Goodwin said.

It allows the fire department get the resources they need with one phone call, Goodwin said.

Goodwin said there was a call made to MABAS requesting three medical rescue teams and three hazmat teams.

The teams were brought in prior to the drill to ensure they would be able to participate.

Dan Nadler, the vice president for student affairs for the university, said the email notification system worked well during the drills.

Both Nadler and William Weber, vice president for business affairs, cited the text message and email systems as having “redundancies” allowing messages to be sent repeatedly.

Nadler said he subscribes to the university’s all-student list, and would therefore know if any emails were not sent.

Overall, officials agreed the drill went well and all objectives the agency had set were met.

 John Downen can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].