A school shooting, a hazardous chemical spill or a train derailment may never happen at or near a Warren County school, but law enforcement and school officials want to be ready for anything.

        Police, fire and school officials will gather at the Warren County Sheriff's Office today for a table-top exercise in disaster preparation.

        “We realized everyone in the county has to have a unified disaster plan,” said Capt. Mike Gardner of the sheriff's office.

        The exercise, held in partnership with the Warren County School Emergency Planning Committee, kicks off efforts to have countywide coordination for:

        • Natural disasters, such as tornadoes, floods and blizzards.

        • Transportation accidents, including airplane crashes, train derailments and motor vehicle and boating accidents.

        • Criminal activities, such as terrorism, bombings, explosions and hostage incidents.

        • Fire/hazardous materials, including chemical spills or explosions, industrial fires/accidents, high-rise and multiple dwelling fires, and nuclear, biological and chemical response.

        The Warren County School Emergency Planning Committee, a volunteer committee of police, fire and school officials, has been working for about a year to coordinate school disaster plans.

        Today, law enforcement and fire officials from as many as 40 agencies will use a miniature model city to test their critical incident skills. The committee's members will soon begin visiting all the county's public schools and perhaps private schools to determine who should serve as on-site law enforcement and fire official commanders in case of a disaster, and develop a unified command system, said Walt Davis, a disaster planning consultant for schools who works on-staff at the Warren County Career Center, the county's vocational school.

        “This is just to prevent another Columbine disaster where rescue forces dally around outside while kids are being assassinated inside,” he said.

        Mr. Davis, who has worked on contingency plans at the Pentagon and with NATO in the 1960s and 1970s, said law enforcement lacked coordination at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., where students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 people and themselves in 1999.

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