Preparing for the unthinkable on a vessel
There are unique challenges when responding to an active shooter situation on a marine vessel.
Recently, the Cincinnati Area Maritime Security Committee (AMSC) conducted an active shooter drill on one of my boats, the Belle of Cincinnati. The drill was designed to bring law enforcement and SWAT teams from adjoining municipalities together to take part in a simulated active shooter scenario on an underway vessel.
The AMSC planned the exercise with an eye toward creating a very realistic scenario. A soundtrack, complete with the sounds of gunshots and screaming passengers, played throughout the day. Tactical teams wore camouflaged fatigues, flak jackets, and helmets, and carried weapons of every caliber.
The goal of the active shooter drill is to learn how to respond to an emergency on a vessel as opposed to a building or landside venue. Understandably, there are some very unique challenges associated with vessels.
One major issue was the dramatic difference in the freeboard between the Belle of Cincinnati and the small vessels carrying boarding teams. The Belle, at its shortest reading, has only 4’ of freeboard, with 5’6” at its highest point. Even with this difference, the tactical teams were able to efficiently board our vessel without incident.
A building may have multiple exits, but a vessel offers far fewer options. We learned that passengers on board a vessel are inclined to jump overboard in such an emergency. As a result, we added a mass rescue scenario to the drill by placing dummies in the water to be recovered.
The other important part of the drill was to test my company’s emergency response capabilities. It is quite intimidating for crew members as the tactical team is working to identify and mitigate any existing threat, yet our crew kept their cool and did their job according to plan.
Lessons learned from conducting active shooter drills are an extremely important part of the process. If the unthinkable happens, is my crew willing to do what is necessary for their safety as well as the safety of the passengers? The crew on board the vessel becomes the critical piece of the puzzle.
An active shooter situation on a vessel is unique as compared to the same scenario in a building. The crew has multiple situations happening at once and has to prioritize their response. If passengers are jumping overboard to escape the active shooter, what emergency takes priority? Our captains are trained to get the vessel as close to shore as possible to mitigate the distance rail jumpers have to swim.
The largest debate my company has had stemming from these drills is whether to arm our crew. We have spent countless hours discussing the options of utilizing weapons as protection onboard. “Run, hide, fight” has become a mantra, but am I giving my crew enough resources to be able to fight? Training the crew to utilize common items found on board the boat is crucial too.
We don’t want to wait until it happens to prepare for such a possibility. This is another drill we add to our routine exercises and ingrain into our training procedures. These drills are a great opportunity for us to see what works and see what we need to improve.
That’s our number one goal here — to make sure the crew onboard understands their role and to practice working together in a real-life crisis situation.
Captain Alan Bernstein, owner of BB Riverboats in Cincinnati, is a licensed master and a former president of the Passenger Vessel Association. He can be reached at abernstein@bbriverboats.com. Opinions expressed here are the author’s own.
This article is an update of a story originally published on WorkBoat.
Related: