Shock waves from the deadly shooting at a Connecticut elementary school reverberated through the community Friday.
Emotions ranged from anger to heartbreak as people struggled to absorb the news.
“It’s incomprehensible to me that an adult can harm a kid in any way,” said Daryl Myers, who has two young daughters. “You just wonder what people are thinking.”
Marcia Cupp, who has children in high school, battled tears as learned about the shooting that left at least 27 dead. Twenty of the victims were children.
“Why would somebody do that?” she asked. “If you don’t like the world, hurt yourself, but why hurt other people?”
At schools across the area, educators battled their own emotions even as they pushed questions of why aside and took steps to ensure their students were as safe as possible.
“There’s no way to predict what can happen in the next second, but I know in this county we go to great lengths to make sure students are safe,” Bluewater Bay Elementary School Principal Connie Hall said.
Shortly after hearing about Friday’s shooting, Hall sat down with her assistant principal to review their lockdown procedures “to make sure there was nothing else we could add to or change.”
They ended up identifying one area they might change, Hall said.
The Niceville elementary school administrators weren’t alone in deciding to review safety procedures after the shooting, according to Okaloosa County Superintendent of Schools Mary Beth Jackson.
“We want parents to be assured we know what has happened and we have stepped up our vigilance,” she said.
All principals were instructed to contact parents and let them know of the increased security measures and that they could come and pick up their children early from school if they felt it necessary, she said.
“When something like that happens you immediately think about your own children,” Jackson, a mother of five, said. “It makes you get this horrible feeling in the pit of your stomach and it just makes you want to find your children and hold them.”
Santa Rosa County Superintendent Tim Wyrosdick and Walton County Superintendent Carlene Anderson said their districts spend a great deal of time preparing for emergency situations that include shootings, severe weather and fires.
“It’s never put on a shelf and left alone,” Wyrosdick said of emergency planning. “At minimum, it’s reviewed twice a year.”
The scary part, both said, is a school can practice often and have the perfect procedures, but still not have enough protection.
“We have done what most schools around us and in this nation have done: We practiced,” Anderson said. “But I don’t think there is any training that can prepare you for the actual event.”
And that reason is why all school districts have strong relationships with nearby emergency responders. In Walton County that’s meant having mock intruders come into the schools and having the sheriff’s office or local police department react accordingly.
“Unfortunately, (school shootings have) become a part of the modern landscape,” Walton County Sheriff Mike Adkinson said. “In this county, we have conducted multiple exercises on how to deal with this … but it’s just a very difficult safety situation.”
They all said they do their best to protect students, and if a situation arises, end it quickly, but sometimes none of it is enough to prevent tragedy.
“I wish I could give parents the peace of mind that this is Walton County School District your children can’t be hurt, but I can’t,” Anderson said. "There’s just no guarantees; not in schools, not in life.”
Angel McCurdy and Wendy Victora contributed to this report.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Katie Tammen at 850-315-4440 or ktammen@nwfdailynews.com. Follow her on Twitter @KatieTnwfdn.