Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom, and South Whitehall Township partnered with numerous Lehigh County emergency responders May 13 for a mass casualty emergency prepareness drill.

"This drill is part of Dorney Park and South Whitehall Township's ongoing readiness training and involves a fictional emergency incident at the park," said Bernard Bonuccelli, sales and marketing director for Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom.

He said the drill was designed to serve as a valuable training tool for both Dorney Park staff and emergency response personnel.

"Dorney Park is pleased to work with this extensive group of local, state and federal agencies to assist in their training efforts," Bonuccelli said. "This exercise drill is a great way for us to improve our response mechanism."

Bonuccelli said post drill evaluations will provide recommendations for future trainings and response procedures.

South Whitehall Manager Jon Hammer said agencies responding to the drill included employees and staff of Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom; South Whitehall Township Emergency Management Agency and police; Lehigh County HAZMAT Special Operations Units; Cetronia Ambulance Corps; Lehigh County Communications Center and Coroner's Office; Lehigh Valley Health Network; St. Luke's University Health Network, Allentown, and Bethlehem; and Cetronia, Greenawalds and Woodlawn fire departments.

"We take a lot of pride in that we are prepared," Hammer said. "We do these types of drills for the general health, safety, welfare of the public.

"We are doing what we are today to try to avoid those problems you have seen in other emergency type situations. We are hoping to avoid the communication type inefficiencies.

"We certainly thank Dorney Park for allowing us to use the park for this very important drill."

This drill, sponsored by the Northeast Pennsylvania Regional Counter Terrorism Task Force, was conducted and evaluated by Strategic Crisis Solutions, East Stroudsburg.

"We are the consultants selected by the Northeast Pennsylvania Regional Counter Terrorism Task Force to work, facilitate and evaluate this drill," Vice President for Strategic Crisis Solutions Michelle Pinnock Harper said. "Over the last couple of months, we have been working diligently with Dorney Park's team as well as South Whitehall Township's team to put this drill together and make sure we had a realistic scenario," Harper said. "I really want to acknowledge them for doing this, to make sure their teams are prepared, that the public is safe, that visitors have a great time and maintain this as a family attraction."

Harper said the drill will be assessed by a team of evaluators, comprised of members from the township and different experts in the various areas tested.

"Our observations will be from the evaluation team as well as the participants, they will also give feedback and that will form the recommendations and lessons learned," Harper said.

Harper said they will be treating the report from the drill as confidential, as a tool for the township as well as Dorney Park and the task force.

"These types of exercises are very sensitive and we don't want to falsely alarm the public," she said. "To my recollection, this is the first time a drill like this has been done at an amusement park.

"We were told this was the largest drill in Lehigh County and in the state.

"We want to give a lot of kudos and credit to Dorney Park for doing this and being a pioneer."