Storms prompt improvements in university's safety plan

The recent severe weather threat to A&M-Commerce was a good test of the university's emergency procedures and identified areas of concern, according to Risk Management Safety Manager Derek Preas.

The tornado threat put some campus buildings on lockdown last Tuesday, April 3, as officials implemented the precautionary measures already laid out in the university's Emergency Operation Plan.

"I feel like [April 3] went pretty well," Preas said. "We got information out to students and members of the community rather quickly."

While information may have been provided in an adequate time period, Preas admits there is more to be done when it comes to communicating emergency procedures for specific areas on campus.

"We have a 'shelter in place' procedure," Preas said about the current policy. "As far as how good of a job we have done communicating that, I don' t know we can say we've done the best job we can do. It's a living procedure, a live procedure; we're always going to be changing that. There are new situations that are going to call for adjustments to it."

Right now, there is no plan for each individual building spelling out where to go and what to do should a tornado threaten campus. Preas said this will change.

"You are going to immediately see some new changes," he said. "[April 3] has helped open our eyes on some of the things we need to do better. Fortunately for us the worst of the worst didn't happen here, but it was 30 feet above us from happening."

He said this will include inspections of buildings to determine the safest rooms - those that are in the interior and have little to no windows. Those rooms will be marked so students know exactly where to go should a tornado strike.

"In the near future, you're going to know in every building what we have identified as a place to shelter," he said. "During this type of imminent weather, there is no fully safe shelter, no matter where you're at. I don't know those places on campus right now, but we will know those places very soon."

Not only will there be designated safe areas, but Preas said individuals will be named as safety managers for each building.

"We're starting a building emergency management program," he said. "We've already identified a couple of emergency managers, some might consider these building proctors. We have identified these and will call them building emergency managers."

The level of communication to students will also change, as the Risk Management department has launched a Facebook and Twitter account.

"We rely, right now, on our Residential Living and Learning staff to pass on information during their meetings," Preas said. "We rely on our faculty, staff and student list serves. We have a little bit of a meeting during new student orientation, and that's about all we do right now. We are attempting with our Facebook and our Twitter to try and get more information to students. "

This will serve in addition to the IRIS alerts students are asked to sign up for at the beginning of each semester on MyLeo. Potential problems with IRIS were found when some students were not able to receive updates during the recent storms.

"What happened [April 3] was not a failure of our communications system," Preas said. "The whole county was on cell phones at one time. That's going to overload any cell provider. If you take the campus community, you've got 10,000 phone calls or messages to send out. By itself, that's usually a well-oiled machine. You add the city of Commerce, 10,000 more phone calls. Add Greenville, 30,000 more phone calls."

Preas encourages students to follow Risk Management's Twitter account, @Lionsafety, and to like the department's Facebook page, Facebook.com/lionsafety.