A full security review is being conducted at all Iowa National Guard facilities statewide following this week’s shootings at the Washington D-C Navy Yard that left 13 people dead. Iowa Guard spokesman Colonel Greg Hapgood says the precautionary move isn’t anything out of the ordinary. “The Iowa National Guard routinely pulls out the security plans, reviews them, exercises them, to make sure they’re still relevant regarding the threat environment that we face,” Hapgood says. “Those threats can certainly evolve with time so we want to make sure our policies work well for whatever that situation might be.”

The colonel says he’s confident in the current security precautions. “We believe that the policies and procedures we have in place now are very sound and don’t foresee any significant changes,” Hapgood says, “but it’s certainly a good point in time for us to pull them out, take a look at them and make sure that they work well.”

There are 54 Iowa National Guard outposts in 41 Iowa cities. The guard headquarters and training base at Camp Dodge near Des Moines underwent extensive security upgrades after the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001.

(Radio Iowa)