After a few minutes of being helped into a bomb suit by emergency management professionals, 17-year-old Jackson Stepp was dressed head to ankle in nearly 110 pounds of Kevlar, plastic and other materials.
There was no bomb inside the meeting room at the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management, where Stepp and 12 other teenagers were learning the ropes of emergency management Thursday. But Stepp, an aspiring Army soldier and police officer, was trying out bomb-squad gear.
The tall, muscular teenager wasn't fazed by the heavy suit, which Sgt. Mike Dawson of the Arkansas State Police said could heat up to 130 to 145 degrees in the hot and humid Arkansas summer.
Stepp peered downward through the eye opening in his helmet.
"It's not terrible," he said in his deep bass voice.
"Yet," Dawson responded, adjusting Stepp's suit jacket.
Stepp of Springdale and the other youths traveled to North Little Rock from across the state Thursday to the first-ever Arkansas Youth Preparedness Council, which was also the first such gathering in the United States. As participants in the council, students learn from professionals in law enforcement, search and rescue, FBI counterterrorism and natural disaster planning, among other fields.
In addition to the bomb suit, Dawson showed the students a $300,000 robot that police, including SWAT teams, use to confront or gather information on gunmen. State police used a robot Wednesday near Hackett after a gunman shot two police officers, killing one of them, and then holed up in a mobile home. The robot was shot and disabled before a suspect surrendered to police.
Dallas police also used a robot, along with a pound of C-4 explosive, in July to kill Micah Xavier Johnson, who shot and killed five police officers.
In the next year, the Arkansas Youth Preparedness Council students will have to implement their own emergency preparedness programs in their communities.
Some, like 18-year-old Casey Williams, have yet to decide what projects they want to pursue but said they were glad for the learning experience Thursday.
Williams of Vilonia already has undertaken an emergency preparedness program.
First thrown into the world of emergency management after an EF4 tornado hit her hometown in 2014, injuring some of her friends and destroying some of their homes, Williams has since established a youth training service for emergency response and has spoken at elementary schools. After she coordinated volunteers in the tornado's aftermath, the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Administration reached out to Williams and asked her to serve on the FEMA Region 6 Youth Preparedness Council, of which she is now chairman.
"I've seen what disasters can do to people," she said. "It's so much worse when people don't prepare for it."
Many people don't think a disaster will happen to them, she said.
Williams will be a freshman at Arkansas State University this fall, where she has not declared a major. She's interested in emergency management but isn't sure whether it will be her career someday. In any case, she said, she advocates for community service, too, not just emergency preparedness.
Stepp, a junior at Springdale High School, also is interested in community service. He wants to join the Army, be a police officer and possibly an FBI agent.
Stepp figures that's a "good road to take to becoming a better person."
He wants a job where he wakes up every morning excited to think about his job, he said.
"I want to make a difference in somebody's life and help them," he said.
Metro on 08/12/2016