VIDEO: Working To Make Flying A Lot Safer

LOWNDES COUNTY, Miss.(WCBI) – If you drove pass the Golden Triangle Regional Airport Saturday you may have see several officers in uniform and lots of flashing lights.

Saturday the airport invited area law enforcement and first responders to participate in an active shooter drill.

Being proactive instead of reactive is the message Golden Triangle Regional Airport wants to send.

“It’s extremely important especially in today’s environment to be ready for any type of emergency situations like this have actually been happening so we wanted to make sure we were ready for it,”said GTR Executive Director Mike Hainsey.

Lowndes County Sheriff’s Department, Narcotics and first responders spent the day going over techniques that could possibly save lives in the event of an active shooter.

Lowndes County Emergency Management Director Cindy Lawrence says if you stay prepared you don’t have to GET prepared in the event of an incident.

“It’s always important to practice and test your plans you know you can sit down at a table and you can write plans and write plans but if you actually test it you will know if there are any gaps in you’re plans or what additional training that your responders need,”Lowndes County EMA Director.

The drills are required by the F.A.A. Lowndes County Narcotics Officer Archie Williams says it benefits the airport but also his department.

“Everybody come together and perform really well. There was a kink or two but that’s why we have those drills. We are going to fix the problem and carry on with it,”said Williams.

Lawrence says practice is essential to perfecting an emergency plan but so is reviewing after the exercise is complete.

“All of our response agencies have objectives they like to look at and test to make sure that if there was a active shooter that our plans would work. We go back and we do a watch to determine what went wrong and what went good and if there’s any gaps in our plans so we can go back and reroute our plan,”said Lawrence.

The drill is only required 3 times a year. GTA plans to make it an annual event.