Plymouth, Whitemarsh Police Help with Arcadia University Bomb Drills

Arcadia University on Wednesday morning was teeming with things your really don’t want to see at a school or any other large institution — dozens of police vehicles, the FBI, bomb-sniffing dogs and that creepy remote-controlled bomb robot.

Luckily, it was all a drill.

Sgt. Allen Stewart with the Montgomery County Bomb Squad was running the show. Starting at about 8 a.m., he was running around campus, coordinating tactics with several law enforcement agencies including the Cheltenham, Whitemarsh, Plymouth and Philadelphia police departments; the FBI; and the bomb squad.
The problem? Someone had left multiple “explosive devices” in backpacks and boxes on campus.

“This is our third time doing this at Arcadia — we conducted two drills two years ago, and one last year,” Stewart said. “And we also have 11 students taking part this year.”

Stewart knows Arcadia well; he’s an adjunct professor who teaches crime scene investigation. Stewart added that Arcadia is organized when it comes to having an emergency plan should those backpacks and boxes be less benign.

“Arcadia stepped up to the forefront and realized there might be a need for this,” Stewart said. “The [Arcadia] director of public safety and I got together and came up with this [drill]. It tests their emergency preparedness and tests our ability and emergency preparedness God forbid anything should happen on campus.”

Kimberlee Moran, a forensic archaeologist with the Center for Forensic Science, Research and Education, out of Willow Grove, was observing. She said that the university is lucky to have Stewart on staff.

“Most universities have to pay a third party to have a drill like this done,” Moran said. “But Allen has been around a long time in Montgomery County and knows everyone — and he’s very passionate about this training.”

It appears that all of the 11 students involved in the 3-hour drill “lived.”

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