Emergency planning starts with you
by Mike McNeney
National Emergency Preparedness Week (May 6–12) emphasizes
the need for individuals to take responsibility for making
sure they know how to prepare for and recover from a major
disaster or emergency.
In those areas, Dean Goard sees lots of room for improvement
across campus. In January Goard was appointed the university’s
emergency planner, reporting to vice-president of finance
and operations Jack Falk. Since taking the post, Goard has
been assessing the university’s existing emergency plan
and studying those of other universities in the western U.S.
and Canada. “Our emergency response plan is similar to
those at other universities,” says Goard, “with
saving lives the highest priority.”
Goard, former secretary to the University Presidents’
Council of B.C., says UVic should “aspire” to the
emergency plan goals set out at Stanford University. There,
every academic and support department is expected to have
a proactive emergency plan to protect the safety of people
and the continuity of programs. Individuals are also expected
to plan ahead to know what they must do before, during and
after an emergency to protect themselves and continue the
mission of the university.
“We aren’t ready to run full-scale exercises to
test the response and recovery plans,” says Goard. But
“incrementally” he hopes to raise awareness of the
need to assess potential risks, determine how to mitigate
them, and plan how to respond to emergencies, resume activities
and, finally, recover from service disruptions.
The university currently has recovery plans in place in computer
systems, libraries, payroll, student records and registration,
and financial documentation. But Goard says those ideas need
to be reviewed.
More troubling is the fact that no formal strategies appear
to exist for resuming teaching and research activities if
a damaged building is closed for an extended time.
Goard notes that the 1994 California earthquake damaged 53
buildings at Cal State University, Northridge and that five
years later chemistry and other wet labs remained closed.
A video about the Northridge experience is available from
Goard’s office.
“Planning for resumption of programming at UVic will
require the efforts of individual faculty members, academic
departments and university support services to be successful,”
Goard says. “The ‘gold standard’ for resuming
services in universities is 30 days. We should set such a
target for ourselves.”
He plans to use it to support other awareness-building activities
during the fall term.
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