Many Colleges’ New Emergency Plan: Try to Account for Every Possibility

Whatever the hazard — whether a meningitis outbreak or hosting the U.S. Olympic trials in track and field — the University of Oregon intends to be ready.

The university has drafted what is known as an “all hazards” emergency-operations plan — a comprehensive assessment of how it expects to respond to the various risks and disasters that could befall it. To carry out the plan, Oregon created an incident-management team of about 25 people, drawn from offices across the university, who are trained to standards established by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. When a mass shooting shook the small campus of nearby Umpqua Community College this month, the university sent members of its team to offer assistance.

Since a gunman killed 33 people at Virginia Tech, in 2007, campus security has taken on added urgency at many colleges and universities. Most have developed emergency-operations plans for threats specific to their institution, according to survey results released recently by Margolis Healy, a private firm that advises schools and colleges on safety and security. But just over half of the survey’s 513 respondents said their institution had conducted a comprehensive all-hazards vulnerability assessment to help shape that plan, as Oregon did.

That relatively small fraction is cause for concern, said Daniel R. Pascale, the firm’s senior director of security and emergency-management services. “That really is a fundamental cornerstone of how you build your plans, how you will conduct training, how you will conduct exercises, because you certainly want to understand those threats, and then be able to put mitigation strategies in place,” he said.

The benefits of comprehensive planning go beyond being better-equipped to deal with an active shooter, said Andre P. Le Duc, executive director of enterprise risk services at the University of Oregon. “It isn’t just looking at it by the peril or hazard, being earthquake, fire, or whatnot,” he said. “It’s looking at what are things that could impact our ability to meet our strategic objectives.”

The list of potential hazards facing a university can reach into the hundreds: A power outage. A natural disaster. A large campus event. A bacterial outbreak. That creates many variables for emergency planners. A college must consider which types of disasters it is most susceptible to, how buildings on the campus are able to withstand a disaster, and which building codes it is subject to, Mr. Le Duc said.

While the university has a written emergency-operations plan and annexes — offering details about how to respond to specific events — should an incident occur, he said, the large team is the most important part of its approach.

“A team can be much more dynamic than a plan,” he said. “The plan gives us the framework for who has what authority to do what. The team — who works together, who knows each other — can assess the situation in the moment and determine the appropriate response.”

A Collaborative Approach

There are reasons, though, why many colleges have taken only limited steps toward emergency planning. In the Margolis Healy survey, budget constraints were the most frequently cited reason that colleges did not conduct all-hazards vulnerability assessments.

But other challenges are more fluid. Robert L. Armstrong, director of emergency management and fire prevention at Ohio State University, said the array of perceived threats change regularly based on what’s happening elsewhere in the world.

The university regularly surveys faculty, staff, and students about what they see as the most important hazards facing the campus. Last year, during the Ebola outbreak, the threat of infectious diseases bumped up a few spots in importance, Mr. Armstrong said.

Still, on issues of campus security, officials can adopt an “out of sight, out of mind” mentality, he said. “Resources tend to be funneled in other directions until something happens. When we have something happen, those resources suddenly reappear, and they’ll stay for a few years. And then they’ll start to be diverted to other areas that need it more,” he said.

While large, residential campuses have beefed up their security preparations since 2007, community colleges and smaller institutions are less prepared should something unexpected happen. And if a natural disaster shuts down a region, even a well-prepared campus can struggle to get the resources it needs.

The Universities and Colleges Caucus of the International Association of Emergency Managers hopes to tackle that problem by starting a pilot program to connect institutions that could share resources in case of emergency. Keith A. Perry, chair of the caucus and Stanford University’s emergency manager, said he hoped to build on what colleges have done informally to create a clear framework for them to discuss what they might give or receive.

“Almost all of us are looking at things from an all-hazards approach,” Mr. Perry said. “This will be something that will just be one more tool in that toolbox we can use at the time of an event to respond more efficiently and appropriately.”

About 15 institutions in the caucus are reviewing the framework, vetting it through their legal and risk-management offices. The caucus hopes eventually to expand the program to other institutions that aren’t members.

The caucus first helped connect colleges during Sandy, the 2012 superstorm that struck when many members were meeting in Florida at the organization’s conference. One college sent diesel fuel to the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, now part of Rutgers University, said Mr. Perry.

‘Amazing’ Support

Colleges in many states have informal mutual-aid agreements, said David Perry, chief of police at Florida State University. Forging those agreements before an emergency hits can be a key part of a college’s preparations.

“It’s insurance to know that you have an additional resource that will respond when needed, but then it helps show an institution where they could improve or they might need additional resources,” he said.

The University of Oregon’s decision to send a team to Umpqua Community College is an example of how a mutual-aid agreement might work.

The university’s Mr. Le Duc said his team had offered assistance to the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission and the state’s security arm, which Umpqua officials then accepted. The team sent a pool of public-information officers to the campus and helped the community college’s leaders improve their emergency-management structure.

There was already enough infrastructure in place for law-enforcement officials and the investigation, Mr. Le Duc said, so his team tried to provide support in other ways.

“Our focus was knowing that after the investigation is done with, they would basically then want to open up campus or give it back to UCC leadership,” he said. “Our job was to help them get their feet underneath them again.”

It was helpful to work with people who understood emergency response and higher education but hadn’t been traumatized by the shooting, said Vanessa Becker, Umpqua’s board chair. Oregon’s team members were able to respond more quickly than the community college’s own leaders, she said.

“Having a team that was able to come in and support us through that was nothing short of amazing,” Ms. Becker said. “I can’t really describe it any differently.”