Campus

Campus prepares for hurricane season

In preparation for hurricane season, which began June 1, UH Facilities Management created a campus-wide exercise in which University employees responded as if a category 3 hurricane would make landfall in 36 hours.

“This is the first time an exercise of this kind has occurred,” said Executive Director of Facilities Management Melissa Rockwell-Hopkins. “The goal will be to conduct two exercises annually — one for pre-event preparation and one for post-event response.”

During the drill, the campus was split up into zones. Employees were sent out to the zones and evaluated as they inspected their assigned areas.

From this exercise, Rockwell-Hopkins said Facilities Management developed a plan to strengthen the University’s emergency-response teams and the collaboration between them.

Different University departments participated in the exercise, like the Fire Marshal’s Office and Emergency Operations Bureau.

In addition to monitoring tropical weather throughout hurricane season, the Bureau posts a Hurricane Planning Guide on its website, detailing how the Bureau prepares and responds to hurricanes.

Pre-storm protocol requires the Bureau to notify the campus to prepare for a possible suspension of normal operations. This decision would be made by the University’s administration.

If suspension occurs and the campus community has been informed through emails and text messages, Ride-Out Team members will be the only University personnel allowed on campus.

These team members are essential to keeping the University’s operations functioning; they would be responsible for distributing situation reports to University administration during the storm.

Post-storm, the Bureau would work with University Communication and Relations in order to communicate with students, faculty and staff.

Team members would work to quickly restore critical infrastructure components and conduct preliminary damage assessments of buildings.

“Facilities with basements are the most susceptible to water damage,” Rockwell-Hopkins said.

Not only does the University have hurricane-preparation plans for the campus community as a whole, but for its residents as well.

Student Housing and Residential Life has 25 buses reserved for evacuating students who have no evacuation destination.

“The specific location (of the buses) is to be determined,” said Don Yackley, executive director of Student Housing and Residential Life. “Based on such things as the safest distance in relation to type of hurricane and the damage or potential damage that is expected.”

But the department urges all students living on campus to fill out an Evacuation Plans Form, available at check-in.

If evacuation is announced by University administration, residents should already have an evacuation destination, according to Housing.

Students should protect their belongings left at their campus residence, the University said it will not take liability of damaged items.

“Residential students are encouraged to have renters’ insurance,” Yackley said. “If belongings are damaged in a storm-type situation, they would need to address this with their insurance company.”

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