L.A. Students Practice New Drill to Survive Gas Plume

Forget “Stop, drop and roll.” There’s a new drill in town.

It goes like this: Stop, turn off the air conditioning, seal up the vents with duct tape and wait.

In the Los Angeles Unified School District this week, the orders for emergency preparedness will get a little more complicated. The district’s Department of Emergency Services has asked administrators and teachers in 806 K-12 schools to practice a new, “shelter in place” drill, instead of more traditional drills.

The exercise, said Bob Spears, director of emergency services for the district, is an opportunity for students, teachers and administrators to learn what to do in case a gas plume approaches a school. The exercise will be similar to a lockdown drill used to prepare students for police activity in the neighborhood, he said.

Homeland security was not the reason behind the drill, Spears said, adding: “I am not looking to ramp up people’s anxiety.”

Some schools in industrial areas where gas leaks or spills are more likely to occur already have started conducting the drill, he said. But the districtwide week of practice is aimed at ensuring that all schools know how to handle such an emergency.

The entire drill should last about 40 minutes -- “enough to practice this skill and have it down,” Spears said.

Principals said they were taking the new drill in stride. Los Angeles Unified already conducts fire drills once a month at elementary schools and once a semester at high schools; earthquake drills take place at least once a semester. Many schools often conduct lockdown drills too.

District instructions call for campuses to pretend that “a large cloud of an unknown toxic material has been released near your school. The cloud is being carried slowly by the wind in your direction. On the advice of authorities, you are directed to notify your students and staff to ‘shelter in place’ until the cloud passes.”

Teachers are to bring students indoors, Spears said, and after turning off the air conditioning, should find a way to cover all door and window vents.

Susie Espinosa, principal of Loma Vista Elementary School in Maywood, said she would be distributing “shelter in place bags” to her teachers, containing such supplies as plastic garbage bags, duct tape and aluminum foil.

Elias De la Torre, an assistant principal at El Sereno Middle School, released a discussion paper to his teachers, detailing the kinds of emergencies that might require such a drill.

Schools, he said, must be ready for any scenario: “a busted gas line, tanks that are overturned, or, heaven forbid, some kind of chemical warfare. Anything like that.... You hear these things in the news and say, ‘I wonder if we have taken any precautions. I wonder if our kids and teachers know what to do.’ ”