2008 Woodie Awards
Police Services prepared for next disaster
Denise Anderson, Staff Writer
Issue date: 3/15/06 Section: News
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"The safety of our students, staff and faculty is the highest priority of Police Services," said Lt. George Ellington, the officer in charge of safety preparedness.
The state of California issued a mandate that all state buildings have personnel that are trained to handle most disasters. In 1994, SSU complied with the mandate, Standard Emergency Management System (SEMS), which has helped California become a leader in disaster preparedness. The program is funded by Cal Grants, and SSU has received $25,000 over the past three years in the form of three grants in order to run the program.
The first grant was spent on supplies and another was spent on training. Staff is trained at the Cooperage, and training is usually in the form of scenarios. Recently our campus worked on disaster preparedness after a bomb threat.
Although valuable training has taken place at SSU, some of the more intense material was taught in San Luis Obispo. Since 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security has made efforts to ensure that all saftey personel at state universities have anti-terrorism training.
"The terrorist attacks of 9/11 increased our awareness and preparedness efforts of other possible disasters," Ellington said.
Besides all of the training that has been conducted, SSU also has a large amount of supplies in storage to help prepare the campus for almost any disaster. One of the tools of our safety personal is the Emergency Operations Center (EOC), located in Police Services. If SSU were to lose all power, sewage, and contact to the outside world, EOC could function on its own. It has its own generator and can run by itself and is still able to reach the outside world for help by phone and radio.
SSU is prepared in other ways besides EOC.
"We recently purchased a large shipping container that is located in Verdot Village near the basketball court. It currently has 1,000 cases of water stored inside, and will soon be filled with other emergency preparedness supplies like food, flashlights, radios and batteries" Ellington Said.