Sandhills Community College is taking proactive steps to protect students, faculty and staff during emergency situations.

The college held a training session and emergency walk-through Friday for faculty and staff, closing down the campus to students and visitors from 1 until 3:45 p.m. The drill mim-icked a situation in which an armed intruder comes onto the school's grounds.

Mike Green, assistant director of campus safety and security, called the "test-run" a success, in that it pointed out areas for improvement.

"Basically, the drill went pretty well," he said, "but there are always spots we need to look at."

Representatives from the Aberdeen and Southern Pines police departments, the Moore County Sheriff's Office and the Southern Pines Fire Department participated in the drill, clearing and inspecting every building on campus. After the drill, staff gathered in Owens Auditorium for a question-and-answer session.

"Those guys were very helpful," Green said, adding that they were off-duty and volunteered to be there.

Sandhills uses basically the same emergency system implemented by the Moore County school system, because many of SCC's students are former Moore County graduates and are familiar with it.

The drill utilized the school's public address system, which announced the "intruder." Green said the emergency personnel on the scene went through the buildings "very quickly and very efficiently." He said the drill allowed the officers to become more familiar with some of the obstacles they may face on campus.

Green said the question-and-answer session was very informative because it allowed faculty and staff the opportunity to voice their concerns.

"Faculty and staff are our evaluators also," he said. "I don't always see things from their perspective since I see things from a law-enforcement perspective. We tried to address any questions they had."

The school is going through a step-by-step process of developing a full emergency preparedness plan. An Emergency Preparedness Committee was formed to make recommendations regarding campus safety.

SCC administrators decided to examine emergency and safety measures on campus following the mass shooting at Virginia Tech in April 2007.

Green said a another drill including students will be implemented in the near future.

Contact John Krahnert III at 693-2473 or by e-mail at jkrahnert@thepilot.com.