Colleges take pains to plan for all possibilities

Charged with the welfare of thousands, Rhode Island’s colleges find themselves at the center of the disaster preparedness movement in the state, even being drawn into some of the biggest logistical challenges that could come up if disaster hits.

For instance, during Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath in the fall of 2005, the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans was swamped with people seeking shelter while basic services across the region malfunctioned. Determined not to repeat the same mistakes, the R.I. Emergency Management Agency is working with Gov. Donald L. Carcieri, the Rhode Island Red Cross, the University of Rhode Island and the Community College of Rhode Island to develop appropriate and well-situated emergency shelters.
Both schools have large facilities that can hold thousands of people, so they could be of great use in case heavily damaged areas needed to be evacuated and their residents relocated.
But local colleges’ emergency planning goes far beyond that. Brown University, for example, works closely with RIEMA and other local agencies and has created its own plan to deal with threats from things such as suspicious packages, to bomb threats, to the pandemic flu. In 2005, it participated in an exercise with RIEMA and other agencies, distributing mock medicine from a sports complex to prepare for a biological assault.
“Katrina, 9/11, SARS were all events that heighten your awareness, refine your plans,” said Walter Hunter, Brown’s vice president for administration and chairman of Brown’s core crisis team.
Kevin Culley, director of safety and risk management at URI, said that prior to 9/11, the university’s emergency plans were more casual than the constantly evolving, multi-purpose Emergency Management Guide now in place.
RIEMA has set up a template, posted on its Web site, for disaster plans, and both URI and Rhode Island College say their plans are based on it. Cyril Cote, RIC’s director of safety and security, said a key aspect of the plans is that they be adaptable to different scenarios, such as a disaster when visitors are present, or an event during spring break.
One of the biggest challenges, Cote added, is creating a communications framework for emergencies. RIC’s television and radio stations, for example, along with its e-mail and telephone systems, already announce weather-related class cancellations and could be used for more catastrophic events.
Salve Regina University, for its part, is developing a comprehensive plan for pandemics to complement its emergency response guidelines. Kristine Hendrickson, associate vice president for university relations and a member of Salve’s emergency task force, said the group meets monthly to discuss revisions.
At CCRI, Dean of Administration Stephen Marginson said the college uses both the RIEMA template and a “comprehensive and all-inclusive” plan posted on its Web site. Students and faculty can visit the site to learn what to do in case of emergency.
Johnson & Wales University’s disaster plans, on the other hand, are informed by experience. Hurricane Wilma, which devastated much of the Florida coast in October 2005, affected the school’s North Miami campus, and officials from there shared lessons learned with their Rhode Island colleagues, said Ahkil Gupta, vice president of the Providence campus.
Maj. Michael Quinn, director of safety and security at JWU, said one key point is to have layers of communication, because during an emergency, you never know what you might lose. JWU is developing a system with an outside company to contact all phone numbers in its records simultaneously. Other ways the university plans to alert students and faculty are e-mail, an emergency announcement phone line and, for those on campus, bullhorns.
At Bryant University, George Coronado, director of public safety, said the phone system is set up to be able to “blast a message,” voice or text, to all phones on campus in case of emergency.
At URI, Culley stressed that no matter how well colleges and universities prepare for disaster, there will always be room for improvement and hindsight. “You can write any plan you want,” he said, “and the day it happens, everything’s different.”

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