Two days after the surprise drill that resulted in the evacuation of the West Texas A & M campus, authorities are looking at what worked and what challenges were encountered.
Campus Police Chief Shawn Burns says the entire campus was evacuated in an hour, which was faster than he expected, however authorities did have an issue with traffic. He said, "Just trying to control traffic flow around a city or campus the size of W.T. and getting everybody out was problematic."
W.T. Police worked with Canyon Police and Randall County authorities. They say they originally wanted to simply evacuate the campus, which took about an hour, but then decided to sweep each building for explosives. That took two hours.
Burns said the original communication could have been better as well. He says they will "try to get the word out to the campus more effectively," and try to educate folks better. He acknowledges some confusion. Zack Workman, Assistant Vice President For Risk Management at W.T. said, "We’re glad it went as quickly as it did. It gave us a chance to test our response capabililities."
