That's because this was a drill.
As part of the Community Emergency Response Team class that started Wednesday night in a room above the Red Cross building on Brand Boulevard, Troh and 26 other Glendale-area residents began their volunteer training for just such a scenario.
Many of them feigned varying levels of injury as designated responders set about separating the "victims" with color-coded tags that corresponded to one of four treatment priorities for paramedics — morgue, immediate, delayed and minor.
The exercise took on a sense of uncanny reality in light of the April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech in which 33 students were killed.
The nation's worst shooting rampage happened midway through national disaster preparedness month, and while officials debate just how prepared the university was to handle the incident, others are taking stock of their own contingency plans.
Public safety and school officials in Glendale say they have measures in place to address various kinds of disasters — criminal or natural.
THE SCHOOL SYSTEM PLAN
In the event of a major criminal event or natural disaster, a high-tech e-mail and phone-calling system for the Glendale Unified School District can reach almost all its parents within minutes, while each individual campus has its own set of emergency plans for different scenarios, district Supt. Mike Escalante said.
Each plan must be approved by the district and, in turn, by local police and fire departments, he said.
Police resource officers stationed at each high school and middle school campus would be first-responders during school hours, Glendale Police Lt. Don Meredith said.
On April 17, the day after the shootings, school board President Greg Krikorian asked the City Council to direct staff to review the district's general safety plan following the shooting tragedy at Virginia Polytechnic University.
