Law enforcement agencies and emergency management officials from across the Lehigh Valley converged on Whitehall High School for a large-scale school safety drill Aug. 23.

Responders from Whitehall Police Department, Whitehall Fire Department, Whitehall Emergency Management Agency, Coplay Police Department, MedEvac and Lehigh County Emergency Management took part in an active-shooter simulation at the school.

Whitehall Police Department Lt. Greg Bealer said the drill was the first of its kind for the area, due to the scale of the planning and response.

“This is the first drill that we went all the way up to evacuating casualties and taking to MedEvac,” Bealer said. “We’ve done active-shooter drills, just not to this level.”

Whitehall-Coplay School District and Whitehall Police Department began planning the drill for the high school in November 2017. While future drills of this scale are unlikely, the district hopes to hold similar exercises at all of its buildings in the near future.

Following the simulation, Bealer and Chief Michael Marks held a debriefing with the high school teachers. Bealer said one of the purposes of the drill was to mentally prepare teachers for any potential events in their classroom.

“It’s hard to set up drills versus what the real-life situation is going to be, but it’s more about preparing your mindset, knowing that you’ve been in a situation like this,” Bealer said.

Whitehall Police Department participated in a similar drill led by South Whitehall Township a few years ago. Bealer said there is an increased emphasis on using multiple municipalities to respond to catastrophic events.

“It’s obvious that none of our departments have the manpower to handle a situation like this alone, so [Lehigh County] is starting to look at doing some training throughout the county with officers from other departments so that we’re used to working with each other,” Bealer said.

Lehigh County Municipal Emergency Response Team coordinated the response times between Whitehall’s initial response and the surrounding departments.

Students returned to campus Aug. 27. The district added a second resource officer for the 2018-19 school year.