At around 8 p.m. last Wednesday evening, Cass County Emergency Manager David Smith received a phone call that no person ever wants to hear when he was informed of a possible child abduction in Dowagiac.

Smith immediately responded to the call, activating the Cass County Emergency Operations Center, where he and another operator helped handle logistics for the search of the woodland area on Riverside Drive.

Dowagiac Police had received information less than hour earlier that a teenage girl may have been kidnapped by an armed man, prompting a massive hunt that lasted into the early morning by police, firefighters and first responders from around the county.

By Thursday afternoon, officials had called off the search operation due to lack of further evidence or leads into the identity of the reported victim or suspect, with no missing persons reports claimed in the hours that followed.

However, the incident served as the first major test for Smith and other members of the county’s Missing Child Response Team.

Led by Capt. Lyndon Parrish of the Cass County Sheriff’s Office, the team is comprised of members of various law enforcement and governmental agencies, as well the Woodlands Behavioral Health. The team officially formed in May 2013 to help coordinate search efforts for missing children, especially in the first 24 hours, when the odds are best of rescuing kidnapped victims.

“When something does happen, those first few hours are critical,” Smith said. “These incidents are something that we may see more of unfortunately, but it’s something we need to be prepared for.”

Smith was one of several county officials who participated in a weeklong AMBER Alert training course in Louisville, Ky. in September 2012, learning methods of coordinating searches, investigations and logistics across various entities.

“A lot of the instruction is based on people who had their children taken from them, and they went on to become part of that organization to prevent things from happening to others’ children,” Smith said. “It’s really pretty amazing.”

Smith drew on that training during the crisis on Wednesday where he assisted the crews in the field from the operations center in Cassopolis until around 2 a.m.

“My initial role was to get word out to the other members and get them ready on standby in case the incident escalated,” Smith said.

Smith also helped push out communications from the sheriff’s office to the media and public during the first few hours of the search, serving as the central contact point.

It was the first time the Emergency Operations Center had been used for this type of situation, Smith said. The center normally helps coordinate information during weather crises, the most recent example being the series of snowstorms that hit the area in the winter.

While Smith said he felt that his office performed quite well last week, the incident highlighted a few areas they could improve on in case of future crisis, mostly in terms of the speed in which they can push out communication to responders in the field.

“When you’re in here, in this environment, seconds can feel like minutes,” Smith said.

Regardless of the result of the investigation, Smith said that last week was a great demonstration of the MCRT’s effectiveness in quickly responding to reports of missing child and of the power that county organizations can generate when working together.

“I can’t think of anything we could have done differently,” Smith said. “There are things we could improve upon, but nothing different.”