Poll: Few aware of disaster plans
By Jeremy Herb
A majority of students polled are not familiar with the university's disaster procedure plans, and most wouldn't even know where to go if a disaster occurred on campus, The Santa Clara has found.
In over 100 interviews with undergraduates, the newspaper found that a small percentage of students have read the university's official preparedness plan. A similar minority also lacked confidence that Campus Safety, the first responders in a disaster, would be able to provide adequate protection.
The findings come as the university attempts to bolster its disaster preparedness in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, in which New Orleans and other parts of the Gulf Coast region succumbed to floods and civil unrest last August.
Of the students interviewed:
* A mere 7 percent have read the university's Emergency Procedure Handbook, which specifies guidelines for responding to a variety of natural disasters and emergencies, including earthquakes, fires and bomb threats.
* Only 33 percent were even aware that the university had such a handbook for emergency procedures.
* About 37 percent knew their emergency assembly point, even though all campus buildings have placards indicating where to go during an evacuation.
* Only 22 percent believed Campus Safety would be adequate for maintaining order.
More than 90 percent of those interviewed live on campus.
"If those results are accurate, then we need to improve our efforts to educate students of disaster plans," Vice Provost for Student Life Jeanne Rosenberger said. But, she said, students should "take some responsibility for their own safety."
"There's a mutual responsibility" on the part of both students and the university to be prepared, Rosenberger said.
About two-thirds of the 100 students interviewed said they would know what to do in an emergency, and about 60 percent said they believed the university was, as a whole, prepared for such catastrophes.
A similar high percentage of students also said they believed city services would provide assistance to the university following a disaster, even though University President Paul Locatelli, S.J., said in an e-mail Jan. 9 that the university would be on its own for at least 72 hours after a disaster.
The university defines a disaster as "any event or occurrence, actual or potential, which has disrupted (or has the potential to disrupt) campus functions, disrupted off-campus functions and impacted the delivery of off-campus public safety services to the campus."
Some examples of a disaster would be a major earthquake, a natural gas outage, a hazardous materials spill, community flooding or large-scale civil unrest.
Should such an emergency occur, the university would set up an Emergency Operations Center, which would be headed by Locatelli.
The EOC would direct all branches of the disaster effort, including Campus Safety, which would be in charge of maintaining order on campus if local authorities are unable to respond to campus, Assistant Vice President for University Operations Joe Sugg said.
"Campus Safety is our security arm," he said. "That's all we have (in a disaster)."
The safety of students living on campus also falls to Community Facilitators, who are responsible for making sure their residents are evacuated from residence halls in an emergency.
Andrew Giustini, a CF in Graham Hall and one of the students polled, said his staff is "supposed to try and make sure everyone has evacuated" in the event of an emergency. He said that during Graham staff's first hall meeting of the year, CFs go over the evacuation plan with students.
But, he said, CFs go "over a lot of things in the first meeting. Emergency procedures is one item of many."
If students are injured during a disaster and if, as Locatelli said, city services are not available, on-campus Emergency Medical Services would provide first aid. Those EMTs, who are students, are trained in the same manner as all state-certified EMTs.
Preparing for disaster
To prepare for large-scale emergencies, Campus Safety Director Charlie Arolla meets with Sugg twice monthly. Disaster planning is one component of those regularly scheduled meetings.
In December, officials ran a mock plane-crash drill, in which a small commercial plane "crashed" into the university and Campus Safety responded. Sugg designed the drill, and also was the main contributor to the EOC plan.
All of Santa Clara's buildings have also been assessed within the last ten years for earthquake safety, and Sugg said that all but two meet the current standards for earthquake safety.
But two buildings that do not meet standards -- the archaeology lab and Donohoe alumni house -- do not have to be brought up to code until the buildings are renovated.
In the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, some damage occurred to the Santa Clara campus. One stairwell in St. Joseph's had to be reinforced. Books in Orradre Library fell off of shelves and there were a few water leaks, according to newspaper archives.
A 2003 study by the U.S. Geological Survey said there is a 62 percent chance a 6.7 or greater magnitude earthquake will hit the San Francisco Bay Area by 2032.