County’s Department of Emergency Services holds active shooter response training

HARRIMAN — Orange County’s Department of Emergency Services facilitated a multi-discipline tabletop exercise for a major incident/hostile event response on Tuesday at the Woodbury Common Premium Outlets.
The drill was held at the I.B.E.W. Building in Harriman in conjunction with the Town of Woodbury Police, Simon Properties, which operates Woodbury Common, the New York State Police, Orange County Sheriff’s Office, the Woodbury Fire Department, Woodbury EMS, FBI, County Medical Examiner, the County Executive’s Office and local elected officials.
The drill was scheduled several months ago, so it was happenstance that the exercise took place just days after the shootings in Las Vegas.
“As County Executive, public safety has always been one of my top priorities,” Orange County Executive Steven Neuhaus said. “We hope that a planned hostile event at a large public gathering never takes place in Orange County. However, we must be prepared for the very real possibility of it happening here, especially in light of the horrific incident in Las Vegas this week. Orange County is committed to providing the best possible training for our first responders and this exercise is a great example of this commitment,”
The Woodbury Common Tabletop Exercise was designed to seek input from area responders on a large scale multi-discipline response, focusing on prevention, protection and mitigation should an active shooter situation arise.
“As part of our county wide emergency management strategy we have been developing Incident Action Plans for many of our large public gathering areas as well as critical infrastructure,” Orange County Commissioner of Emergency Services Brendan Casey said. “These plans allow us to have an orderly response to chaotic and dangerous situations. This drill today was designed to test our IAP for Woodbury Common and to make sure all the first responders know their respective roles and responsibilities in the event of a large scale incident.”