With winter and its potential for weather-related emergencies on its way, campus emergency planners are urging all units on campus to complete their emergency plans and make sure that members of their departments know what to do during emergencies.
While a severe winter storm is one of the most likely causes of a widespread emergency at Cornell, it is not the only hazard for which people should prepare, said Phil Cox, director of facilities management and chair of the Central Emergency Planning Team (CEPT). For the past 17 months, CEPT has been developing a campuswide plan and working with colleges and divisions to develop their individual plans. Among other potential crises that could occur at Cornell and trigger emergency plans are a hazardous materials spill/release, power failure, a large fire, civil disorder and flooding.
A meeting for college/division emergency coordinators will be held Tuesday, Nov. 14, from 9 to 11 a.m. in G-10 of the Biotechnology Building. A demonstration of how unit plans will be linked to the campus emergency operations center will be given. The agenda will include updates to the inclement weather policy, an online tour of the emergency plan web site and a preview of a pending campus drill for emergency notification.
A big concern for planners, said Cox, is getting information out quickly to all areas of campus, especially people "out in the field" who are not sitting by computers or telephones.
"All units should now have in place their emergency coordinators, emergency operations centers and procedures for notifying staff and faculty about emergencies," Cox said. "The central plan developed by CEPT calls for emergency notifications to be sent out in a variety of ways, including e-mail and through the news media, but units are responsible for making certain that all their employees, faculty and students actually receive that information."
Cox said the emergency coordinators will get a preview Nov. 14 of a new university notification system, an e-mail program that is designed to "cut through" network traffic and get messages to large numbers of recipients almost instantaneously. That system will be tested on campus in the near future.
The central campus emergency plan calls for college/division coordinators to put their unit plans into operation as soon as an emergency notice goes out to the campus community. Cox is hoping that coordinators will use the test of the university notification system as a drill for their own plans.
Last May, several local radio stations reported a National Weather Service warning about a possible tornado in the Ithaca and Cayuga Heights area, giving only minutes of warning. Only those people listening to the radio heard the warning; many of them tried to spread the word. Cornell Police and Facilities' Customer Service had no time to send out e-mail announcements to the entire campus. Some building coordinators received warnings and ordered people into basements. Most, including residence hall staff, got no warning at all. Luckily, the campus was hit with only some strong winds and no tornado.
That incident graphically demonstrated a major communications problem, Cox said. While an oncoming blizzard usually gives plenty of lead time for preparation, other emergencies give no advance warning at all. The university is investigating the purchase of a signal horn, and perhaps outdoor loudspeakers, so that police would have the capability of warning people all over campus -- in classrooms, walking along the quads, in dining areas and in remote buildings -- about danger.
The central campus emergency planning effort grew out of the university's preparations for Y2K in 1999. While the Y2K bug never struck, it demonstrated the need for advance planning and a coordinated response to emergency situations.
"We can never completely eliminate the potential for disasters to occur," Cox said, "but we should do our best to be ready for them. Some major emergency occurring at Cornell is inevitable."
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