Northwestern administrators said they would release a comprehensive emergency plan today that includes procedures for alerting the campus and surrounding areas of a crisis situation and calls for the update of evacuation plans for all buildings.
The 20-page plan covers 12 types of emergencies, including: fires, floods, earthquakes, riots, downed aircrafts, bomb threats, radiation leaks and gunmen.
The planning covers methods of internal communication, such as a phone tree for administrators, and external communication, such as the creating a center for media announcements in an emergency.
A 28-member task force composed of personnel from departments including student affairs, risk management and facilities management met semiweekly from October to mid-December to develop the plan. The group presented the plan Dec. 18 to University President Henry Bienen.
“It’s brilliant – let’s hope we never have to use it,” Bienen said.
Methods of communication in the plan vary from Web site announcements to flyers left over from Y2K, Vice President for University Relations Al Cubbage said.
“If worse comes to worse what we’ve got is a bunch of brightly colored paper that we go and post up on doors,” Cubbage said. “We can’t rely on the media to give very specific information about NU’s status if it’s an event that affects the entire metropolitan area.”
University Controller Ingrid Stafford, who led the task force compiling the plan, said past emergencies such as the Aug. 2 flash flood and the events of Sept. 11 gave the university a chance to explore the gaps in NU’s planning for emergencies.
“(The flood) was a very good test case of having an external event happen in a very short time,” Stafford said. “We identified opportunities where we could have done better.”
The plan does leave some additional responsibility for administrators, including the revision of evacuation plans for all buildings on campus as soon as possible, but the plan does not mandate a timetable for those revisions.
“They’re supposed to have it now, but there are some buildings where those plans need to be revised,” Stafford said. Most dormitories have emergency plans updated through fire drills, she added.
The deans of all of NU’s schools as well as department heads also must create or revise plans to conduct business if power is lost or another emergency occurs, Stafford said. Most departments already completed a plan when preparing for possible Y2K power outtages, she said.
A smaller group of staff from the same departments will revise the plan yearly, and the Division of Risk Management would be responsible for distributing the plan to all of NU’s departments, Stafford said.
The university would handle all students on a case-by-case basis, but reserves the right to ask people who are not members of the NU community to leave campus, she said.
The plan could be in action for up to three days, Stafford said. Several departments, including University Police, would restructure their staffs to accommodate emergency plans, including situations near NU that would require use of the plan.
UP would divide its staff into two 12-hour shifts to give the force more manpower as opposed to the three shifts that it operates under normal hours, UP Chief Saul Chafin said.
“Someone like me would literally move in and stay here,” Chafin said.
