Perry County holds school safety meetings

PERRY COUNTY, Mo. (KBSI) – Perry County and Emergency Management Agencies meet each month to discuss school safety.

Schools and agencies that are invited include District 32, St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Schools, Immanuel Lutheran School, Altenburg Public School, and United In Christ Lutheran School, the City of Perryville, Perryville Police and Fire Departments, Perry County Sheriff’s Department, Perry County Juvenile Office, Perry County Emergency Management, and Perry County Health Department.

The recent discussion talked about recent school threats and children and social media use.

They discussed ways to share information between schools and agencies, emergency water storage on campus, and the Drug Identification class held on campus on Sept. 23.

Perryville Emergency Management Director Jeremy Mantz held a presentation on the city’s new outdoor warning siren activation system.

“This fully automated system monitors the National Weather Service Service for any tornado warnings issued for the City of Perryville and adjacent areas, about 5 miles from the city’s center. “Whenever the NWS issues a tornado warning polygon in this area, the system automatically activates our outdoor warning sirens,” Mantz said. “We have lots of redundancy built in as well; we can activate the system from our radios if emergency personnel in the field see a tornado, and I can start the sirens directly from my phone.” Mantz said that the monthly tornado siren tests conducted at 10 on the first Monday will now take one minute, and are designed to operate the sirens off the battery back-up. From the control center, Mantz can see when any siren is offline.

These meetings allow for schools and agencies to share information between each other.