Woodbury Common General Manager Dave Mistretta, left, talks to Casey, center, and Neuhaus
GOSHEN – Orange County Department of Emergency Services led a multi-discipline
tabletop incident response exercise on Tuesday with Woodbury Common Premium
Outlets in Central Valley the target. The drill was held at the IBEW building
in Harriman.
Despite the timing days after the Las Vegas massacre, a county spokesman said the drill was planned weeks in advance.
“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 infrastructures,” said County Emergency Services Commissioner Brender Casey. “These plans allow us to have an orderly response to chaotic and dangerous situation. 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.”
“As county executive, public safety has always been one of my top priorities,” said County Executive Steven Neuhaus. “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.”
