Into the Belly of the Beast.....Sort of - Grand Coulee Dam

A long time ago in a lifetime that now seems far removed from everything near and dear to my heart today, I was an emergency management specialist with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.....you know, that agency that owns and operates some of the largest dams in the world.....dams like Hoover, Glen Canyon, Shasta, Folsom, and, of course, Grand Coulee.

That last one, Grand Coulee Dam, is the subject of this blog post. You see, that's the one I was working on when things went down at Columbine High School.

I could upload a whole bunch of stock photos of Grand Coulee Dam off the Internet, but that would take away from the reality, at least for me, of what an experience it was to be involved in a project like the one I was. So, here's one I took:

This thing is really big.....REALLY big!

For those who don't already know, Grand Coulee Dam is on the Columbia River in east-Central Washington State.  This dam is one of the largest dams in North America.

My mantra when working on this project?

If large operational releases were to be made from, and/or failure of this structure were to occur, the consequences for downstream jurisdictions and municipalities would be catastrophic.

Why? Because eighteen counties in Washington and eleven counties in Oregon would be affected, along with multiple local, state, Federal, and Tribal organizations, several Public Utility Districts, and ten dams along the Columbia River all the way to its confluence with the Pacific Ocean.

But that's not why I'm writing this post. Nope. Not at all. This post is about the dam, itself, and the stuff I learned as things progressed.

For example, did you know dams are designed to leak? Believe it. They are. And they do....leak, that is.

Did you know dams like this are actually kind of hollow on the inside? Well, not really, but they do have tunnels all over on the inside called 'galleries'. They're there to allow for operations and maintenance of the structure. They're like a maze, sort of like long hallways with doorways on each side of passageways, passageways that end in stairwells that either go up or down, up toward daylight or down into the bowels of a seemingly endless maze of doorways and tunnels - getting lost is a very real possibility. Easy enough to do....getting lost, that is.....if you're not as familiar with the seemingly endless passageways as personnel from the facility are.

These passageways go all the way down to bedrock - the very bottom of the Columbia River, the river bottom - 550 feet below the crest of the dam above, and about 500 feet below the reservoir surface of the lake held back by this dam. Think about that for a second. 500 feet of water above where you're standing at the very bottom of the Columbia River if you're lucky enough, or stupid enough depending on one's personal perspective, to be able to descend all the way to the bottom. And the galleries down there leak a whole lot more than some of the galleries above.

When the Grand Coulee Project Office Rep I was working with offered to take a colleague and me down into the belly of this beast, my colleague jumped at the chance. I wasn't too sure I wanted to go on that trip, and that's what it was going to be. A trip. A multiple hours long trip, or hike if you want to call it that.

This guy told us stories about the building of this behemoth structure, stories like how the workers knew there were rumors aplenty that some who helped build this thing had been buried in the concrete as it was being poured. Knowing these rumors were rampant, these guys, having the sense of humor they did, would fill the fingers of their gloves with hot dogs, place the gloves up against the walls of the forms, and let concrete be poured over them. When the forms were removed, the gloves' indents, with fingers clearly showing, would be exposed into the gallery. Or, they'd do the same thing with their work boots, soles up against the walls of the forms. Only this time, the bottoms of the boots would show with the rest of the boots buried forever in the concrete. No one was actually buried, but over 80 men did die while building this structure.

But I digress.

My two friends finally convinced me to set aside my trepidation and to go on this hike with them. Against my better judgment, I donned the required hard hat (with lamps, by the way) and we began what would be a very long, very arduous, very claustrophobic trek down into the damp, dank, and, yes, very dark bowels of this man-made wonder.

The further down we went, the more arduous the journey became. The galleries got narrower. The leakage got more pronounced. We got wet...very wet. Being as tall as I am, I had to be careful not to bang my head on doorways as we went through them.

The only thought going through my head.....repeatedly, I might add.....was how in the HELL was our guide going to get us back out of this abyss?! I was lost. Very lost. So lost, if I'd been able to turn around in a panic and in an effort to retrace my steps back out, I have no doubt I'd still be there somewhere, screams for help going unheard, and finally going stark raving mad in the darkness until my pleas for help diminished into insane mewlings until the inevitable.....well, I guess I'm getting a little morbid here, huh?!

Fact is, it was claustrophobic, it was wet, it was dank, and it was dark. After we passed below a certain level, lighting was provided only by the lamps on our hard hats. Once, and once only, our guide asked us to switch off those lamps. Very, very slowly and reluctantly, my colleague and I complied. It seemed like as soon as the lights went out, sound went away with them. Panic began to set in. I couldn't see my own hand when I touched my own face! Absolute darkness! Thinking back on it, I don't really know if I'd have even been able to find the switch to my lamp if our guide hadn't turned on his lamp first.

There he stood with this shit eating grin on his face from ear to ear! Good one, Dude! Scared the crap outta me! Yes....yes, you did!

And then we were at the bottom. Water here was about two to three inches deep everywhere we walked. Leakage. Kept telling myself this was normal only half believing that myself. And then our guide told us we had about 500 feet of water above us. Yeah. 500 feet.....of water.....above us. Sure do hope the dam doesn't collapse! Hadn't in all those years of holding back 500 feet.....of water.....above us. I think it was at that exact moment in time, that very moment, I realized just how important the work I was doing actually was. If this dam were to fail, that 500 feet of water above us would cascade downstream. It would take out multiple dams in a domino effect. It would catastrophically flood whole towns. It hit home. It hit hard.

See, the thing is members of the general public don't get to go on tours like this. Sure, they get to see a few of the galleries. They get to see the power houses where the hydroelectricity is generated. But they don't get to go down into the belly of the beast, down to the river bottom, down to bedrock.

I'll remember this trek for the rest of my life. Obviously, our guide was able to find his way back out, and ours. Otherwise, I wouldn't be writing this story now. As with virtually any climb, the journey up was a LOT more arduous than the journey down.

The thing about those workers that built this structure? They found a way to share their humor while working in a very dangerous environment. The photos contain some of their graffiti. One even includes a painting of Alfred E. Neuman (Mad Magazine mascot in later years).

And, finally, this one. At the very bottom, visitors, however few they may be, are invited to share a bit of their own graffiti. My nickname, Ted, is visible almost in the center of this photo.

Grand Coulee Dam. DAMN, but that DAMN DAM is a DAMN BIG DAM!

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Let it GO.......But I can't!

Mandy Hale Quote
Pinterest: AgapΩ

This quote from Mandy Hale hit me hard when I saw it in my random surfing on the waves of the Internet ocean that have become my social media networks.

REALLY hard!

It makes so much sense, and, at the same time, makes no sense at all.

Does THAT make any sense.....at all?

In the immediate aftermath of the massacre at Columbine High School, shit got real for a whole lot of people.

By just about everyone's standards, shit got even more real in the days, weeks, and months that followed. At least it did for my family.

Looking back on those days, weeks, and months today is like looking into a very deep black hole....an abyss that poses a risk of falling into and not being able to get back out of if I allow that to happen. It scares me every single time I venture to look down into that abyss....that rabbit hole of reality combined with Carla's (my first wife) paranoid delusions and psychosis.

That black hole is fraught with dangers:

Dangers that swirl around what was said to whom and by whom.

Dangers that swirl around lack of understanding and comprehension. 

Dangers that swirl around secrets kept.

Dangers that swirl around secrets that need to be revealed.

Making sense out of those days, even TRYING to make sense out of those days, is tough. It's more than tough. Words fail me as to how tough it is because I simply can't remember with total clarity a lot of what went on. Does that make any sense?

For those who lived those days, weeks, and months with my family, there's a modicum of understanding of what we were going through. But no one, not anyone, 'knew' the realities of our lives in the aftermath of what has come to be known as 'Columbine', much less what went on before this tragedy. They had an inkling, but they really didn't know.

To be clear, I'm not looking for sympathy here. Nor am I looking for compassion or empathy. I'm simply stating a fact - no one really 'knew'. No one knew the depth of Carla's mental illness. No one knew how that mental illness affected my nuclear family.

No one knew what it was like for Carla and me to try and deal with, on a medical level and on a familial level, the delusional paranoia with psychotic episodes that manifested in ways no one who did not know could not imagine, even if they were to try.

And that's how we chose to keep it. We chose to try and portray ourselves in the public arena as something we were not....a public arena that was thrust upon us by circumstances far beyond our control and beyond anything we could have possibly imagined might happen.

We chose to try and keep secret the reality surrounding a pervasive and insidious illness that ultimately took one life, Carla's, and could very well have destroyed others in its wake.

It was a conscious choice, a conscious decision.

To be real about what had happened, and what was happening to us wouldn't fit into what the public so badly needed to see following this evil taking of innocent lives and malevolent injuring of so many others. Our reality simply did not fit in the public's view of how they wanted things to be. At least that's how we saw it.

I honored Carla's wishes in keeping her delusions, her hallucinations, and her paranoia secret.

If I were given a do-over, I'd do the same thing again.....in a heartbeat.....even knowing that doing so may have played a role in some way in her taking her own life.

Marriage means you honor, you love, you cherish your spouse no matter what. Even if it means going against your best judgment to keep things under wraps, so to speak. You do so out of love.

There are a few exceptions. But they are few, and, ultimately, they are very personal. They have to be by their very nature.

What does all of this have to do with the subject of this post? Well, the love I had for Carla may have caused me to overlook some things I wouldn't have glossed over otherwise. Her mental illness may have clouded my own judgment in not calling her out a little more forcefully in how she interacted with people following the trauma she experienced at almost losing both her children on that terrible day. Perfectly understandable.....right?

I guess it might be likened to listening but not actually hearing. Sort of a 'can't see the forest for the trees' is one way to look at it.

I knew there was something even more wrong with Carla after April 20, 1999. Something way, way beyond the physical injuries to Anne Marie, the psychological injuries to Nathan, and the other inherent trauma that go along with being a parent in these types of situations.

Something much, much deeper even than that. Much, MUCH deeper. An insidious nagging at the back of my mind told me so then, and will keep on telling me so into the future if I don't at least try to address it somehow.

That's where the second part of the original meme in this post comes in.....

Let it Go!

That's what the quote at the outset of this blog post says.

Let.....it.....go!

To put it bluntly, there's simply no way I can let it go.

And that's the part of this meme that makes no sense to me whatsoever!

I can't.....let...it...go!

Why? Because as time has passed since Columbine, I've been made aware bit by bit, incident by incident that others outside my nuclear family were hurt by things Carla said and did.

I've also become aware that others outside my nuclear family, those on the receiving end of things Carla said and did, were also hurt by things I did not say or do to protect them. That...that right there...is what causes me to not be able to let it go!

I know these things are true.

I struggle with this.

I hate that they happened.

I cannot, and will not, deny that they happened.

They happened.....yes, indeed.....they happened.

Things were said. Things were done.

Things were said and done, and I did nothing in response.

That's as much of a problem, perhaps more so, than anything and everything else....that things were left unsaid and undone by me in response to hurtful things that WERE said and done to others outside my nuclear family.

Remembering some of those things is hard to do - not necessarily because they aren't clear in my memory. Rather, because I am ashamed. I am ashamed they were even said. Ashamed at how I handled those situations...or not.

I'm still ashamed. And therein lies my dilemma of not being able to let go.

It really isn't even a matter of driving myself up a wall backwards trying to find peace (although some might disagree with that assessment). Rather, it's about coming to grips with something that should have been addressed a very long time ago, but wasn't.

Sometimes, the remarks were made directly to me about others. Paranoid, fearful remarks. Unwarranted remarks. My efforts to soothe and calm Carla were a mixed bag. I tried. That's what her doctors said I should do. In spite of everything I tried, though, I knew my efforts were a mixed bag. I just knew....

Other times, remarks were made directly to individuals other than me. THOSE are the ones I struggle with the most mainly because I'm still finding out about them even today little by little, bit by bit.

Stunning, distressing, almost unbelievable things, really. That is, unless one understands the illness involved: the fear, the paranoia, the delusions, and the psychosis suffered by the person making them.

I don't blame Carla. I blame myself for not trying to do more to help prevent those remarks from being made in the first place.

How do I make amends?

How should I approach those who've suffered as a result of those hurtful remarks?

Should I even try?

I cannot let go without at least trying on some level to make amends in order to find peace, not only for myself, but also for those who were hurt.

How would I ever be able to resolve this dilemma if I simply let it go? And therein lies the biggest conundrum of them all.

Everyone there at Columbine High School that day....every single person, whether a student, teacher, administrator, first responder, parent, friend, or some other relative, and, yes, even the media....experienced trauma.

Truth be known, the entire country experienced trauma that day on some level.

Those of us who experienced trauma first hand, from the very personal and physical perspective that we did, were overwhelmed by it.

That's simply a statement of fact.

We'd like to think we were functioning on a coherent level.

We'd like to believe we were thoughtful.

We'd like to believe we were rational.

We'd like to believe we were psychologically up to the task of maintaining our composure under intense and persistent pressure from outside our own nuclear families.

We'd like to believe we were.....but, and it's a very big BUT, were we.....really?

Does that even make sense? Especially looking back at how things went down during the chaotic aftermath? Does it? Really?

In training seminars on emergency management I've conducted, I often used this meme to illustrate a point about how different people react to different situations:

We did the best we could given the hand we were dealt, but, in reality, we were all paddling like HELL! We simply weren't cognizant of that fact!

And therein lies the gist of what I'm trying to say in this post:

Everyone experiences trauma.

Everyone...experiences...trauma.

For many of us on the 'inside' of the Columbine tragedy, our trauma seemed to us to be of a LOT higher degree of magnitude than anyone else.

That it really wasn't is the tragic conundrum we're now seeing emerge more and more in other survivor's stories.

Don't believe me? Then, please read the book, If I Don't Make It, I Love You: Survivors in the Aftermath of School Shootings available on Amazon and in Barnes and Noble Bookstores.

Some of us closed our eyes to other folks' trauma.

Some of us ignored it.

Could it be said some of us actually feared it?

That, folks.....that right there, is what I personally struggle with every time I think about this, or when I see a meme that jolts my senses the way the original meme in this post did.

Conversations with others also have an impact....even today.

Loss of contact with very, very special people has even more of an impact. People who set aside their own trauma and stayed in our lives to try and help.

Were we really that wrapped up in our own struggles that we blinded ourselves to the needs of those who were only trying their very best to help while denying their own very personal traumatic experiences from that day?

Was it willful?

Was it intentional?

Were we even aware of what was going on?

In the end, it's still a blur. That's real. That's VERY real. That's palpable for me.

A complete and total blur.

The only thing I know for a fact that is very, very clear is there are people out there who deserved better......better from my family.

But most telling of all, they deserved better then, and they deserve better now, from me, personally.

Somehow, I must make that right.

Let it go?

Here's what it boils down to for me.....that people I've considered as a part of my own family, although not a part of my nuclear family related by blood or by marriage but a part of my own extended family by friendship and so very much more, have been hurt by things I said and did or by things I didn't say or do to protect them. I'm struggling with what some of those things might even be. That's the most difficult part for me.

I ask their forgiveness and hope we can come together once again as the extended family I came to cherish so very, very much in the days, weeks, and months following both the tragedy at Columbine High School and the suicide of my first wife.

I hope they see this, and I hope they realize who they are because, after all is said and done.......

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Blinded With Vision or Vision With Blinders?

Blinded With Vision or Vision With Blinders?

I originally shared this blog post February 25, 2015. Since then, it's become readily apparent it's in need of a significant update/amendment.

The rationale for being "Blinded with Vision" rests in the aftermath of shooting massacres, schools included, and the advocacy that arises as a direct result. 

Some advocates push agendas/policies based in their own personal experiences.

In a February 27, 2015 article, NPR talked about proposed legislation wending its way through the Colorado State Legislature that year that would allow anyone with a concealed carry permit to do so on any school campus. That's right......ANY school campus: elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, colleges, and universities. ANY school campus! My initial reaction to this was along the lines of WTF??? 

That being said, I've been told by any number of pro-gun advocates I'm too close to this issue (Columbine parent....two kids there that day, one of whom was shot and paralyzed from the waste down) to be able to speak to it while leaving the emotion out of the equation. Granted, leaving the emotion out of this equation is not easy, but I try to do so as best I can.

One of the bill's sponsors, Patrick Neville, was a sophomore at Columbine High School when that massacre occurred April 20, 1999.

According to the article from NPR, Mr. Neville couches his desire for this legislation to become law in what I consider to be a misguided and dangerous attempt to save lives by allowing guns in schools:....the old anti-gun free zone stance taken by so many pro-gun advocates and advocacy groups.

"I truly believe that had some of them had the legal authority to be armed, more of my friends might be with me today."

That's what he said. That's EXACTLY what he said. 

The old pro-gun mantra that "guns save lives". 

And there you have it. 

Front and center.

"Guns save lives".

Think about his statement for a second....or two....or however long you need:

"I truly believe that had some of them had the legal authority to be armed, more of my friends might be with me today."

Is this statement 'emotional'? Methinks it kinda sorta is.

How so? Because he has no viable proof to bolster his belief/opinion. He does not offer, nor does he have, any viable data to bolster that belief/opinion either. Ergo, it is an 'emotional' statement based on nothing more than his own belief/opinion that it is true.

Where am I going with this? 

Well, the sad reality is Mr. Neville has a public forum to state his 'beliefs/opinions' on any subject by virtue of his holding public office. Sadly, many of those who share his 'belief/opinion' also buy into that 'belief/opinion', and they view that 'belief/opinion' as, at the very least, being factual as far as teachers being armed is concerned. 

Don't believe me? Fast forward to 2018 and into 2019 in the aftermath of even more school massacres. 

But I digress.

My own simple reality, my interpretation, my 'belief/opinion' is that if Mr. Neville were singing a little different tune on this issue, if he were speaking out against arming teachers and/or allowing guns in schools, his stance would be received a bit differently by pro-gun advocates. In fact, I kinda sorta 'believe' he'd be a one term elected official, at best.

Truth is, those who've been directly affected by massacres involving the use of guns, and who've mustered the courage to speak out against the very thing Mr. Neville is advocating for are often times castigated, vilified, threatened, condemned, reviled, and even slandered for that stance.

Castigated.

Vilified.

Threatened.

Condemned.

Reviled.

Slandered.

Told they don't know what they're talking about.

Told they should just go home and wallow in their own self-pity.

And so much more....much, much more. Much, much worse.

But, here's another thing to consider....based on the fact Mr. Neville's assertion is an emotional assertion, why, then, are those whose children have been murdered by someone using a gun, or whose children have been injured by someone using a gun not supposed to, or be allowed to, put forward their own emotional views regarding their own personal traumas? Why are their views any more irrational, any less valid?

I ask this because when one comes right down to it, right down to the nitty gritty of the issue, Mr. Neville's comment above, simply stated, is based solely on his emotion, his own personal deeply held emotional trauma surrounding what happened to him. It is not based on, nor does it rely on fact or factual data or factual reasoning.

In his comment above, he was referencing teachers being armed. I'll give him that much, at least.

However, his proposed legislation draws no distinction between arming teachers and arming members of the general public when it comes to guns on campus. Does anyone else see a problem with this? I know I sure do! 

Is this omission an oversight? Or, is it intentional? Think about it. 

In the proposed legislation, itself, the very last paragraph says this:

SECTION 3. Safety clause. The general assembly hereby finds, determines, and declares that this act is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, and safety.

"Public peace, health, and safety". That's what it says.

It does not specify students, staff, administration. It specifies "public". I must admit that I have a serious.....no, a VERY serious.....issue with that provision. More on that later.

By now, at least some of you who follow my blog know our family was directly affected by the massacre at Columbine High School, as was Mr. Neville.

Our family also experienced indirectly the hostage taking and murder of Emily Keyes at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, CO.

Here's the thing, though....those two experiences, in and of themselves, do not BY themselves 'qualify' me, in any way, shape, or form, to speak to this issue in the manner and tone I am about to do. To be sure, they evoke a LOT of emotion for me personally! A LOT of personal trauma revisited! But they do not, BY themselves, qualify me on a 'professional level' to speak to this issue.

No, they do not.

However, my professional experience in the field of Emergency Management does. This professional experience is my ticket to being able to speak to the issue of school safety rationally and with critical analyses of things being proposed....things like Mr. Neville's proposed legislation.

My professional experience in the field of Emergency Management also tells me this proposed legislation, and other similar legislation either proposed or already enacted in other states, flies directly in the face of everything I've ever been trained in or actually experienced in a professional capacity.

Let's be very clear here: This proposed legislation does not now, nor will it ever, include my support for allowing guns on school campuses anywhere. 

There is only one exception to my stance, and that is for certified law enforcement personnel like SROs and appropriate police department personnel.

I struggle mightily in trying very hard to suppress my own emotion and trauma that revisits every time I see something like Mr. Neville's proposed legislation. In fact, there are times I struggle in trying to offer a rational response to what I consider to be a 'Vision with Blinders' advocacy.

Following mass shootings, an inevitable reaction is for some who are directly affected to become advocates/activists. That's a statement of fact. 

Too often, in my professional opinion, those advocates adopt a vision that metaphorically blinds them, a 'Vision with Blinders' approach to their advocacy. That's perfectly understandable. There's nothing more emotional than having a loved one taken away by murder or changing their lives forever because of injury resulting from a gun shot wound.

These visions adopted by advocates motivate them, more often than not, to pursue their vision with blinders on. Nothing else matters. Nothing else will stand in their way. In other words, they become 'blinded by their vision'. Therein lies the danger in their advocacy.

That malady, if one wants to call it that, isn't unique to either side in the vision to arm or not to arm school staff. 

Frankly, however, when I saw this proposed legislation, I was nothing short of being pissed off! Why? Because after so many mass shooting incidents, the victim's families are accused of being too emotional if they promote the idea, the concept, of 'common sense gun control'.

You're just going to have to pardon my emotion on this issue for awhile, and indulge me in my rant before I get to the more emotionless analysis from an emergency management perspective I intend to share with you.

I know, I know - I'm not supposed to be.....emotional, that is.....especially according to those advocating for more guns, more guns in schools, more guns everywhere. After all, an armed society is a polite society, right? Sheesh!!!!

Then those victim's families are confronted with something like this proposed legislation, from a 'victim' no less, someone who was there, someone who lived through this massacre. 

The article states:

Patrick Neville was a 15-year-old sophomore at Columbine High School in 1999. He was on his way to a fast food lunch when the shooting started.

That could be interpreted to mean he was on his way to the school cafeteria or it could also be interpreted to mean he was on his way to a fast food restaurant off campus. In the end, it really doesn't matter, I guess. He was a student at CHS. That, ultimately, is what matters.

So, because he was there, because he was a student at CHS, he is apparently, by association, asserting his qualifications to speak to the issue of school safety by advocating more guns, more guns everywhere (including schools), at least according to him.......everyone who was there is an expert, right? An expert in first response. An expert in emergency communications. An expert in emergency medical response. An expert....an expert....an expert. WOW.

Oooh, but wait a second here, you say.

He's an Army Vet you say.

In the Army, he was trained in risk management and insurance you say.

Doesn't that experience 'qualify' him to speak to this issue, you ask?

Well, that....that right there, is why I'm so flummoxed by what he's advocating....guns in schools --- guns everywhere. It's also why I'm writing this blog because he should, yes SHOULD, arguably know better than to advocate for guns in schools and guns everywhere. 

So, the fact is he was there...at Columbine High School...on April 20, 1999.

Does his experience in risk management, does his experience with the insurance industry, both of which are critical to doing a sane analysis on the issue of school safety vis a vis guns, make him an expert enough to be able to say, "I truly believe that had some of them had the legal authority to be armed, more of my friends might be with me today"? I truly do not know. But, given his risk management and insurance industry experience, he should arguably know better.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to diminish or dismiss his trauma in any way, shape, or form. More than most, I can empathize with him in his trauma. That's not what I'm going after here.....not at all.

But I DO disagree with his view that more guns might have prevented more loss of life. In fact, in my view, he's speaking to this issue from more of an emotional view than a rational or viable risk management view, by far.

His view is, in my professional opinion as an emergency management professional with decades of experience in this field, a 'Vision with Blinders' on.

What he fails to acknowledge is what I call a logical fallacy in his thinking. To listen to him, one gets the impression that more guns in the hands of qualified teachers might have, I repeat, MIGHT have saved more lives.

On its face, this perception may be, I repeat MAY be, correct. 

Conversely, this perception, had it actually been a reality, might, I repeat MIGHT, have had the exact opposite effect and more lives might, I repeat MIGHT, have actually been taken as a direct result.

It's called the 'law of unintended consequences' including the possibility of collateral damages.

I believe it's appropriate to ask a question here: Did anyone consider this 'law of unintended consequences' and the possibility of collateral damages possibly rearing its ugly head when writing and then proposing this ill advised legislation?

But I digress. 

In point of fact, those family members who've been directly affected by school massacres who also advocate for a saner approach to the issue of school safety have been, and continue to be, accused of being too emotional to be able to speak to this issue, kind of a 'Blinded with Vision', a 'no guns anywhere' vision accusation from pro-gun advocates.

Why is that?

Sorry, rhetorical question. I think we ALL know the answer to that one. If not, then we're pretty dense, aren't we? Either that, or we completely and totally lack any semblance of what we call empathy.

Enough with my rant. Time to get down to some serious analytics from an emergency management and school safety perspective.

To start, following the massacre at CHS, then Governor Owens commissioned a panel to analyze this incident. The result was The Governor's Columbine Review Commission Report.

Basically, in the opening remarks of this report are contained all one needs to know about how this massacre went down:

The Columbine High School tragedy was the work of two disgruntled seniors at the school (personal note: I'm leaving names out in support of the No Notoriety Cause), who determined to kill as many teachers and fellow students as possible, first, by planting and detonating two 20-pound propane bombs in the school cafeteria and then by shooting survivors fleeing the inferno they hoped to create. When their explosive devices failed to ignite, the two approached the school and killed one student and seriously wounded a second as they ate their lunches on the grass. They then entered the school building and began firing at students leaving the school cafeteria, wounding five students and deliberately executing one of them.

I could take issue with the accuracy of this paragraph because my daughter was one of those critically injured outside the school in this initial onslaught, but I won't. That part of it simply isn't important to the message being conveyed here.

So, how is this paragraph all one needs to know, you ask? Well, please take a look at the methodology here. The idea was to detonate bombs and to then "pick off" fleeing students as they exited the school building.

Had these two monsters been more capable, that plan might very well have resulted in many more casualties.

My point? They set themselves up OUTSIDE the building to carry out their malevolence. Had their bombs actually detonated, they would, in fact, have been successful in picking off students and teachers as they exited the school. But, because their bombs did NOT detonate, they had to enter the school and conduct their mayhem.

Had their bombs detonated, the cold hard reality is that arming teachers and other school staff wouldn't have made one single bit of difference in the "good guy with a gun " perspective of being able to take out those perps! Not even a little bit! 

The University of Texas, August 1, 1966: a sniper......yes, a SNIPER......set up in the university clock tower and began shooting.

When he was done, he'd taken 13 lives and injured 43 others over a "96-minute killing spree", as stated in the article. 

My point? During the incident at CHS and during the response, there were reports during that response there might actually be a sniper on the roof of the school, since debunked, but reports never the less that caused some major confusion and anxiety during that response.

Furthermore, and here's where my emergency planning analytical mind kicks in, what if a sniper were to set up OFF school grounds somewhere hidden and start shooting at kids on school grounds?

Granted, most, if not all the more recent school massacres have involved a miscreant breaking into a school to perpetrate their madness, but the "what if" scenario I present here cannot simply be ignored.

So, arm those teachers? Allow guns on campus? Anyone's guns?

Sadly, the 'law of unintended consequences' doesn't end there.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that teachers are armed and ready. Here again, the "what if" questions resurface.

For example, what if.......law enforcement response is to engage and neutralize? Arming teachers and allowing citizens to concealed carry does NOT take into consideration the tactical training law enforcement officers must consider when responding to active shooter incidents.

As officers, it is a given that we are responsible for every bullet that comes out of our guns. That means that we must be sure of our target, but also what’s beyond it. You can’t just open up on the first person who has a gun; you have to make sure that he or she is not a cop before pulling the trigger.

The quote above was taken from an article in Campus Safety Magazine and was written by a certified law enforcement officer and training instructor (please click embedded link above to read the full article).

Please note, this expert said nothing whatsoever about anyone other than cops being affected by friendly fire, of making sure that anyone carrying a weapon isn't a cop before pulling their trigger.

Fact is, if a cop is confronted by anyone.....yes, ANYONE.....other than another cop who is carrying a weapon of any kind, what is the likelihood the cop will recognize the carrier as "a good guy with a gun"? Think about that for a second. Or take as long as you need to in order to digest that information, that reality faced by cops responding to extremely stressful conditions in which they would have no prior knowledge of who is, and who is NOT, supposed to be carrying a weapon in that school.

So, if there is any one single detriment I see with the proposed legislation to allow concealed carry on school campuses, it is this one. This should be a deal breaker as far as I'm concerned. 

The FACTs are irrefutable. If experts in the field of emergency response can get confused over HOW to respond to active shooter scenarios, then legislators should also accept the FACT that they are not the experts in the field of emergency response and defer to those who are......even if those experts acknowledge they get confused. This is simply from a perspective those experts are, at the very least, analyzing, studying, and trying to come up with a methodology that works the best. I find it hard to believe that legislators are doing the same.

It is, quite simply put, not simply as simple as arming teachers, much less allowing anyone with a concealed carry permit to do so on school campuses. And, it's not always about guns either. The single worst school massacre in U.S. history involved a bombing.....shades of what the massacre at Columbine High School could have been.

And that.....that right there is why schools of today need to......no, MUST.....conduct what those of us in emergency management call a Hazard Vulnerability and Risk Assessment. There's more to it than just this one single aspect of emergency management, but it's the place to start, in my professional opinion.

It's not always about guns. It's not always about active shooter scenarios. It's so much more than that.

• Types of hazards
• Risks presented by those hazards
• Likelihood of occurrence of those hazards
• Consequences of those hazards should they occur
• Costs associated with planning for those hazards to occur, trying to mitigate their effects, responding to, and/or recovering from their occurrence
• Potential benefits of addressing each hazard somehow with realistic means available to the "community"
• And so much more

Truth is, planning for something, anything has no beginning per se, and no end per se. It is, very simply put, cyclical. No beginning. No end. When one thinks they've finished, what they've done is reached a point where their planning efforts have taken them as far as they can go....at that particular point in time. As new technology, new methodology, new demographics, etc., etc., present themselves, the planning process must pick up where left off from before. Emergency planning is no different in that regard. 

If that emergency planning, by virtue of the hazards and risks analyses conducted, yields the 'guns on campus' idea as being a good and/or necessary thing (urban vs rural needs, for example), then, by all means have at it. But to codify this into law mandating that schools allow guns on their campuses flies not only in the face of school safety preparedness, but also in the face of local control over this type of scenario - state government overreach, perhaps?

One more thing to consider here in that regard: Why is this kind of mandate any different, really, than mandating that schools be designated as gun free zones other than from an 'oppositional gun control' perspective?

Truth is that active shooter scenarios in schools, at least the kind this type of legislation is striving to errantly address, are low probability/high consequence events. Schools need to......no, MUST......plan for their possibility of occurrence, but to devote this kind of legislative attention to guns on campus is misguided, and ultimately may even end up being more dangerous than the problem it's attempting to solve.

The problem in emergency planning lies in the danger of doing so with blinders on, either for something or against something, without 'listening' to those who might be more in the know about such things, and without heeding their advice or their expertise.

That's EXACTLY what I'm seeing here with this proposed legislation. The sponsors, alongside those who support this 'oppositional' form of gun control, appear to not understand the potential long term negative effects of ramming this legislation down the throats of those who see things otherwise, hence the term I used previously, "oppositional gun control".

And, finally, the legislation does not consider the potential for insurance consequences, either - arguably one of the more pertinent risk factors associated with allowing guns on campus. This is an area in which I will argue Mr. Neville, given his insurance industry background, should also know better than to try and push through this kind of legislation.

Insurance companies have discontinued coverage, or threatened to raise premiums, of some school districts that have opted for arming teachers and allowing concealed carry on their campuses.

Liability suits following the Columbine massacre could conceivably have broken the entire school district if not for insurance coverage. Asking the right questions of insurance carriers regarding guns on campus policies they might not be willing to cover is simply another absolutely critical question that needs to be asked during the planning process, and BEFORE moving ahead with that 'vision with blinders' mentality of good guys with guns stopping bad guys with guns.

Bottom line from my professional perspective:

• Do your hazards and risks analyses
• Plan accordingly
• Get community involvement in the planning process which includes schools, first responders, emergency management personnel, parents, students (yes, I did say students.....at least age appropriate students), and appropriate community members and organizations

So, Mr. Neville, because you have risk management/safety and insurance industry experience on your resume, I challenge you (if you ever happen to come across this blog post) to use the knowledge, the experience you gained from this part of your occupational history to realistically re-evaluate your premise that more guns equals safer schools.

With all due respect,
Ted Zocco-Hochhalter

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