For the first time this season, there was plenty of splashing and laughter at Bridgeport Pool Thursday afternoon. The occasion was a reward pool party for 76 students of Heritage Christian School. The party was hosted by Bridgeport Emergency Services.

 

Heritage Christian served as a pilot school for a new program which the city rolled out in recent months.

 

“S.C.O.P.E. stands for Schools and Communities Organize and Prepare for Emergencies,” said Laura Pysz, director of Bridgeport Emergency Services. “When you get the kids involved, you get the parents involved, so that’s why we launched the program. Teaching the kids to be prepared, in turn, will get the household prepared.”

 

In connection with that program, headed up by Amy Romano, Heritage Christian students completed a series of preparedness tasks this school year. Those tasks included assembling emergency kits for the school, homes and vehicles and creating family emergency plans.

 

“We chose Heritage Christian because we needed a school that we could get into kind of easily and really get some good data and buy-in from administration as to how well this program would be received,” Romano said. “The whole idea behind this is to get as many people in our city – if not our county – to be prepared in the event of a disaster or emergency.”

 

Unfortunately, data indicates that a very small percentage of individuals – about five to 10 percent – actually get prepared ahead of an emergency.

 

“As you could see when we had the derecho and snow storms is that people wait until the last minute,” Romano said. “We want to back that up and get people prepared ahead of time.”

 

The whole idea, she said, is to teach residents to be self-sufficient for three days.

 

“What typically happens in a disaster is we have about a three-day window,” Romano said. “By the time something happens and we react to it, then need to call in reinforcements – agencies like FEMA – to come in, it’s about a three-day turnaround before they are able to get in and help us. During those three days, if people do not need to call fire and police for basic needs and let them handle the real emergencies, we are better off.”

 

Romano said the buy-in for the Heritage Christian School pilot program was tremendous.

 

“We had about 50 percent of students actually participate in the four-part series,” she said.

 

In addition to those four elements – a family emergency plan and emergency kits for school, home and vehicles – eight students took it a step further, Romano explained.

 

“They went without power for 12 hours to see how well they could be prepared,” she said.

 

Those eight students will receive an additional reward. They will spend a day with Bridgeport Fire and Police departments and get a behind-the-scenes look at the departments’ operations.

 

In addition to perfect summer weather, Thursday’s pool party included a sunscreen station, pizza and snow cones and several prize drawings for items relating to preparedness. Assisting with the party were members of the Bridgeport Middle School Juniorettes.

 

Pysz said she, too, is thrilled with the success of the pilot program and said emergency services is already planning challenges for next school year.

 

“We would love to expand the program and involve more schools” she said. “Of course, with public schools, there are more steps to launch a program like this, but we are working on it.”

 

Pysz and Romano thank Heritage Christian School students and their parents, as well as the faculty and Principal Linda Simms.