It’s a little past 9 am on a beautiful spring morning in the LMA. The streets are brimming with commuters, students, patients and visitors. As you settle into your morning routine, fire up the computer, grab an extra cup of coffee, your cell phone starts buzzing madly with emergency alerts and emails.

“There’s an active shooter in the LMA.”

But most importantly, THIS IS A DRILL.

Earlier this month the MASCO LMA Emergency Preparedness Committee hosted its annual disaster exercise and the scenario was an active shooter in the LMA. Facilitated by Christian Lanphere, PhD., director of Emergency management for Cambridge Health Alliance, the event drew more than 120 LMA employees and 20+ first responders from the Massachusetts State Police, Boston Police Department, Boston EMS, MBTA Police, the Council of Boston Teaching Hospitals and the Office of Public Health Preparedness.

Emergency Planning and Preparedness is a crucial aspect of work done in the LMA by MASCO and its members. Each month members of the Emergency Preparedness Committee meet at MASCO to review incidents, share best practices, assess current plans and protocols and review lessons learned from previous incidents. 

"The LMA hosts a number of trauma centers, research facilities, and colleges in a dense urban area,” said Lanphere. “Acts of violence threaten countless lives and the very institutions dedicated to higher learning and medicine.  The LMA community is preparing at all levels to communicate and respond to those acts of violence."

“The active shooter tabletop exercise drove home the critical importance of joint communications and crisis management collaboration between the MASCO institutions should we experience a city- or neighborhood-wide emergency event,” said Darlene Gillan, MassArt Rapid Response Team member.

Tucker Husband, MASCO’s manager of Emergency Preparedness pointed out that “coordinated, balanced communication and a centralized command post are key elements to successful training and eventually execution of a safety plan.”

"When it comes to responding to critical incidents, training and relationship building are essential ingredients to an effective response,” said Officer Jamie Kenneally, BPD Public Information Officer.  “As such, the opportunity to sit down with our friends in the LMA community is one the BPD sees great value in and looks forward to continuing."