PORT ANGELES — It looks like a war zone inside.
Desks are knocked over.
Doors lie strewn about the floor.
Whole walls have been ripped apart violently.
No, this isn’t some abandoned building smack in the middle of a bullet-torn city.
It’s Peninsula College’s residential hall in Port Angeles.
In about a month, the two-story structure built in the early 1970s will be taken down to make room for a new $23.5 million science and technology center.
Last school year, the dorm building sat mostly vacant and unused, awaiting its inevitable annihilation.
That destruction, however, has not come about via the swift blow of the bulldozer.
It has been a slow process.
For the last few months, the college lent the building to police officers in Port Angeles and Sequim, as well as Clallam County correctional officers, to conduct emergency situation simulations.
“They just loved it,” said Matt Graves, institutional support services director for the college, as he walked down the dusty, shadowy halls of the blacked-out structure on Wednesday.
“They set up all kinds of scenarios — hostage taking, dogs sniffing for drugs.
“We pretty much left them on their own.”