Gunfire, screams and explosions echoed across Stephens County this week as law enforcement and public safety officials took part in two different training days on school emergencies.

Officers from the Toccoa Police Department, Stephens County Sheriff’s Office school safety officers, and officers from the Cornelia and Lavonia Police Departments took part Tuesday in active shooter training.

Officers learned to work in teams of four, which is different than the teams of eight addressed in traditional Special Weapons and Tactics training, said Toccoa Police Chief Jackie Whitmire. Active shooter training teaches officers to take a shooter down, while SWAT training teaches them to handle a standoff or hostage situation.

“We cannot wait on a SWAT team,” Whitmire said. “This training is training officers to enter the place — whether it is a school, business or whatever — and do what needs to be done.”

During the training, which is taking place at the former Stephens County Middle School building, officers learned to work as a team to search hallways and classrooms until they find the shooter. Over and over, on a hot afternoon in a building with no air conditioning, the officers practiced entering classrooms and communicating with one another using hand signals. Instructors added smoke bombs and loud noises to simulate the chaos of a real emergency.

Deputy Frank Cowen, an officer who works at Stephens County Middle School, said while officers always hope to never need to use such training, the realities of incidents such as those at Columbine High School in Colorado and at Virginia Tech make it necessary.

“I think it is really important because that is part of our society today,” Cowen said. “We do not really get a chance to do this much training when we are out on the road, so it is good to get a chance to do this kind of training.”

More than 100 people from across the state representing all varieties of public agencies came to Toccoa to take part Wednesday in a class about managing school bomb threats.

Taught by representatives of the Georgia Bureau of Investigations in partnership with the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, the class covered all aspects of handling bomb threats including creating and implementing a bomb threat plan.

“It educates law enforcement all the way through to the school systems on the best practices for evacuations and threat procedures to threat evaluations,” said Special Agent Mike Clayton of the GBI Special Operations Unit.

After a morning of classroom work, class participants filed out to a field in the Stephens County landfill for a final exam of sorts. GBI agents demonstrated varies kinds of explosives used to eliminate suspicious packages. In the final, most dramatic demonstration, a bomb in a backpack was detonated inside a car. The car did not survive the demonstration.

For local authorities, the most valuable part of the training seems to be the teamwork forged between emergency management officials, law enforcement, and school system authorities.

“Unfortunately, we do live in a day in age where bomb threats in schools are a real issue,” said Becky Wall, director of the Stephens County Emergency Management Agency. “It is not just schools, it is any real condensed population. This has been so valuable to help us come together as a team and learn how to address these issues (right now) so we have a better outcome in the actual event.”