Lessons learned during threat

For Donna Little-Kaumo, Thursday presented her with something she hadn’t faced during her 10 years in Green River.

Thursday morning, the state received an email detailing a wide-reaching bomb threat involving multiple state and local government buildings, as well as unnamed schools.

“There are 50 pounds of RDX and PETN plastic explosives hidden across 40 Wyoming schools, and 10 schools have had their fire sprinkler systems filled with napalm,” the anonymous email stated. “Today Wyoming will be turned to dust.”

A message from the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security sent to school districts and law enforcement suggested the agencies enact established protocols in place for such a threat.

Attacks did not occur anywhere in the state and law enforcement didn’t locate any explosive devices. According to Guy Cameron, director of the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security, their email was sent to agencies to create an information stream regarding possible targets across the state. The office itself doesn’t have investigative capabilities, but relies on local and state law enforcement agencies to relay information back to the office. He said the threats were emailed to other states, as well as portions of Canada.

For the school district, the email meant evacuation.

Little-Kaumo said the major problem with enacting their regular evacuation plans was due to the threat involving multiple school buildings. Some school evacuation routes lead students to other nearby schools as a meeting point. Without those buildings, district officials were very limited in where to move students and resulted in the sudden dismissal of students.

Little-Kaumo said the district also learned not all parents have signed up for the district’s text messaging service, which provides information to parents regarding situations within the school district.

“We know people have that phone in their pocket and they check texts more often than their email,” Little-Kaumo said.

Little-Kaumo said the event also emphasized how the best response plans need to be tweaked and how administrators need to make decisions based on the best information available, not simply rely on a response plan.

Little-Kaumo said the Green River Police Department was a great help in dealing with the threat and said the district will remain being cautious when it comes to the safety of the students.

“I think we made the right decision,” Little-Kaumo, said.