Preparing campus for emergencies

In recognition of Emergency Preparedness Month in April, Caltech’s Environmental, Health, and Safety Services Office is coordinating a drill to determine how ready the campus would be when dealing with a major emergency, such as an earthquake.

The emergency drill will take place from 3 to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, April 22, beginning at the north and south undergraduate houses and proceeding across California Boulevard to the Braun athletic field. Involving as many as 300 to 500 students, the exercise is intended to test the campus’s ability to evacuate students safely and to respond to medical emergencies when municipal emergency response personnel are unavailable.

The scenario will be a 7.5 earthquake that has taken place near Pasadena, causing structural damage to the student houses. Student health advocates will triage and give first aid to a number of “victims,” and observers from the Pasadena Fire Department and the American Red Cross will be on campus to evaluate the drill. Caltech’s Health Center, along with Residence Life, Security, and Physical Plant, will participate.

In addition to this month’s drill, Environmental, Health, and Safety Services Office associate director Caz Scislowicz is encouraging the Caltech community to be prepared and to know what to do in the event of an emergency. A campus emergency preparedness and response plan is in place that outlines steps for various campus offices, departments, key personnel, and all individuals, with the goal of ensuring safety and security and minimal disruption of campus operations.

In the event of a campus emergency, senior administrators will determine the level of emergency and the appropriate response. Condition 1 includes minor incidents such as an unusual odor or a limited electrical outage. Condition 2 refers to midlevel emergencies requiring coordination with outside emergency services; for example a fire, power outage, or major chemical spill. Condition 3 indicates disasters affecting a substantial portion of the campus and surrounding community, such as a major earthquake, an explosion, or civil disturbance.

If the disaster is large-scale and requires coordinated response by multiple departments, the administration will activate an emergency operations center (EOC) in the Physical Plant conference room, to which functional representatives and personnel who have been assigned specific roles will report. Some examples of people and departments with key roles include Security (emergency assessment, traffic control, and evacuations), Housing and Food Services (emergency housing and food), Public Relations (information; emergency hotline), Student Affairs (evacuation, student tracking, and parent inquiries), and Student Health (first aid; counseling).

Although emergency teams will respond as quickly as possible across campus, the Safety Office urges all divisions and departments to be prepared to cope until help arrives. Each unit should have an evacuation plan with coordinators, identified routes, and a meeting point; an emergency checklist; and extra water and emergency kits. If classes are in session, faculty are responsible for providing guidance in their classrooms, such as instructing students to take cover during an earthquake and evacuating them to designated assembly areas.

In addition, Scislowicz urges all personnel to individually prepare themselves and their families for emergencies. Caltech community members should arrange communication and assembly plans with their families and their children’s schools; maintain personal emergency supplies in their offices, cars, and homes; and learn basic emergency response skills and first aid. The Institute’s emergency plan will best succeed, he notes, if all campus personnel are prepared and able to pull together in a coordinated response.

For more information on emergency preparedness, visit www.safety.caltech.edu/crisis/crisis.htm.
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