CHAPEL HILL - The University of North Carolina is conducting emergency drills on its Flagship Chapel Hill campus this morning and afternoon.

Randy Young with UNC's Department of Public Safety says the drill includes the coordination of multiple agencies and several hundred participants.

“Each university in the system does numerous table top drills and actual emergency drills in the field ever so often. We certainly learn a lot from these every time with stage these.”

Young says his department is coordinating the multi-agency effort: “We’ll be looking at law enforcement personnel from Orange County, from the town of Chapel Hill and Carrboro. We also have folks from the Environment, Health, and Safety, [and] Orange County EMS. And that’s just people who are playing an active role in it.”

During the drill, actors will portray gunmen, hostages and victims to simulate an actual emergency with the goal of evaluating how the University works with local emergency responders if there is an actual emergency on campus.

Young says coordination and communication are important in diffusing a dangerous situation. “One of the goals is to learn to work with other agencies in the area, to learn how we communicate with each other, to iron out any gaps in that communication or operations and tactics.”

The exercise is stationed around Davis Library, the Pit and Lenoir Dining Hall from 7am to 2pm.