Response was so overwhelming to attend training in Houston for the world’s first standard of a unified active shooter/hostile event planning, response and recovery program, that another training is scheduled for today, with more than one hundred on a waiting list.
Harris County Fire Marshal's Office along with NFPA, Crime Stoppers, and the Texas Fire Marshals' Association are hosting an education session on NFPA 3000: Standard for an Active Shooter/Hostile Event Response (ASHER) Program.
First responders, law enforcement, medical personnel, and private industry are getting trained on various aspects from identifying hazards and assessing vulnerability to planning, resource management, incident management at a command level, competencies for first responders, and recovery.Harris County Fire Marshal Laurie Christensen said after the Florida Pulse nightclub shooting, the fire chief who responded said something has to be done.
“We have to create something that we can give to local businesses, hospitals, school districts, emergency responders, something that is basically a plan that they can follow,” said Christensen. “We know these events are going to happen, so what we’ve got to do is we’ve got to put the whole community together, we have to have a unified integrated response and planned recovery.”
She said the general public is often the first on the scene who has to be prepared to handle disaster situations.
“It is about, not only the active shooter aspect, but hostile event response, because it could be something such as a chemical hazard, or obviously we deal with fireworks, people using fireworks inappropriately,” said Christensen. “We see so many of these incidents. Harris County is large and we know that we’re going to continue to grow. And, we want to get out there, we want to meet more people and talk to more people, but we also want to make sure they have resources they can go out and get that information themselves.”
Christensen is a principle member of the NFPA 3000 committee.