After last week’s lockdown at Warren Central High School, local agencies have had time to decompress and review their emergency management strategies and how they are executed.

Vicksburg Warren School District Superintendent Chad Shealy praised the response by emergency responders, adding the effort was seamless. The lockdown occurred for about an hour and a half Thursday after a campus police officer heard a loud noise that resembled gunfire about 11 a.m.

Warren County Emergency Management Agency Director John Elfer said fortunately a plan was in place, so everyone knew exactly what to do.

“We have a plan and we have rehearsed our plan,” he said. “Emergency management’s job is to help manage the multiagency response.”

Elfer said with numerous agencies responding, it is important to make sure everyone is on the same page with what is happening.

“Our role is to set up a command post where all the agency reps are so we can maintain resources and situational awareness,” he said. “When agencies needed things, we got them for them.”

The central command post gives all of the agency representatives a place to go, Elfer said.

Responding agencies to last Thursday’s lockdown included Warren County Sheriff’s Office, Vicksburg and Warren County Fire services and EMS, River Region Ambulance, Vicksburg Warren 911, Vicksburg Police Department, Mississippi Highway Patrol, Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics and Vicksburg Warren School District.

“We help manage that,” Elfer said. “The response is not going to be efficient unless everyone acts as a team. That’s what our agency does. We help it stay organized.”

Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace Campus police and Warren County deputies searched the school the school grounds and the property immediately adjacent to the school but found nothing.

“This type of incident is certainly something that we never want to happen but it is something we have all trained together for,” Pace said.

The cause of the noise has not been determined. Warren Central High School is surrounded on three sides by a wooded area. Uniformed deputies remained on campus at WCHS for the remainder of Thursday as a precaution.