It's hard to believe it's almost been a year since the massacre at Virginia Tech. For 911 dispatchers in our area, they want to make sure they're prepared for any type of crisis like it in the Mid-Ohio Valley.

They're the people behind the scenes responding to crises each and every day- dispatchers.

Wood County 911 Center Director Randy Lowe said that training is an important component that they hold at least once a year with instructors from PowerPhone. The company is a crisis communications management team who teach courses to responders around the world.

There more than than 30 dispatchers there Friday from West Virginia and Virginia. Some were even there from Blacksburg, the site of the Virginia Tech shooting.

PowerPhone Instructor George Kurzenknabe stressed location location location and how important it is to find out where the situation is taking place.

The instructor is a retired police chief from New Jersey who said training helps but in the end it's the responder's best guess of what to do in the moment.

"Get the hostage taker from a high emotional level to a reasonable normal level of functioning so we can communicate and once we get the emotions down lower down to our level than we can talk to them person to person and hopefully negotiate a peaceful solution," said Kurzenknabe.

He says they have learned many lessons since the Virginia Tech massacre and despite talk that an evacuation may have been best, he said it's not.

He said you try to communicate, set up a perimeter and try to get as many people safe as soon as possible.

In his career Kurzenknabe responded to crises where people have been barricaded in.

He walked through many different scenarios like that to see what the dispatchers would do. Also trainees had the chance to talk with one another about what has and hasn't worked for them in different situations.