As wildfires raged through San Diego County a few weeks ago, everyone was on alert, including the UC San Diego community. Our Emergency Services team, university leaders and essential personnel reported to campus every day during the fires to care for our students and others at the university, and to ensure the safety of the campus. The UCSD Emergency Operations Center was activated and remained a constant buzz of activity and decision-making. Emergency Services Manager Phil Van Saun, who once served in the Marine Corps and worked in the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, talks about the campus’s response to the wildfires, the extensive exercises that prepared our campus for this disaster and what we should all do now to prepare for the next emergency.

Van Saun: I liked that I could help people, that I could directly assist someone and see the impact of my actions. 

Van Saun: I don’t think any campus is prepared for all contingencies.  I would say, based on our response to the recent wildfires and our emergency exercises, we have the capability to respond effectively to a disaster.  One thing we stress is all-hazards preparedness.  If you build a response model around a specific scenario, it can’t be adjusted.  So we have a basic response plan with specific procedures that can be applied to numerous situations.

Van Saun: Just a week before the fires, we held an active-shooter exercise on campus.  It was quite comprehensive and very challenging.  We didn’t release the scenario to many people, so people responded as they would to a real disaster, with no notice.  Then a week later, the same people responded in the same roles for the fires.  The guidelines we used for our response to the active-shooter exercise were the same we used during the fires.  For both events, we considered issues such as the potential need for evacuations, environment, health and safety concerns, police matters, coordination with local, state and federal agencies, and communications protocol.  That, to me, showed the great benefit of the exercise.  It was validation that exercises help people realize the importance of training and their roles during an emergency.

Van Saun: My first year here we did a tabletop exercise based on a simulated chemical release on Library Walk.  The next year, in 2005, we held both a tabletop drill based on having a fire on campus and a full-scale earthquake exercise.  In 2006, we conducted a building-takeover drill at Calit2.  This year, we did the active-shooter drill.  We’ve conducted quite a few exercises since I’ve been here.

Van Saun: We need to look at ourselves as our own city.  There are roughly 50,000 people here on campus at our peak time, including nearly 28,000 students.  We have the same requirements to take care of people that a small city has.  That’s why it’s important that we have our own internal functions.  We also communicate and coordinate very closely with the city and county of San Diego.  We train together and share resources during emergencies.   

Van Saun: The Emergency Operations Center is where campus leaders and emergency responders congregate during an emergency to coordinate and communicate both internally and to the local community and outside agencies. There are five basic functions of the incident command system in the EOC– management, operations, logistics, finance and administration, and plans and intelligence. The person in charge is called the EOC Director and that person is appointed based on the nature of the emergency.

Van Saun: It’s dependent on the severity and location of the incident, and the decision is made in consultation with the Chancellor.  There could be an event on campus that doesn’t affect our outside community or there could be an event in the community that may or may not affect the campus, such as the fires, where we had air quality issues, but there wasn’t a fire on the campus.  The rule of thumb is it’s always better to activate the EOC as a precautionary measure than to wait.  It takes time to train people and build relationships, and with an emergency like a wildfire, you don’t know if roads will be shut down.  So it’s better to call people in before things get too bad.

Van Saun: It’s very important.  So is creating and maintaining relationships before and during a disaster.  Thankfully, we enjoy a great reputation in this community.  We know the folks from these agencies through our exercises and our training.  And we all use the same system and protocols, which is helpful.

Van Saun:Communication is key.  We were very active with our communication during the wildfires and it was well coordinated.  The role of University Communications was vital.  Associate Vice Chancellor Stacie Spector did a great job of filling her role in the Emergency Operations Center as the Public Information Officer for the management section.  The entire policy group worked well together to make timely decisions and then communicate those decisions to a massive audience, including students, staff, faculty and community members.  The messages were crafted and delivered quickly, and they were consistent.  The recent events also demonstrated the value of the Emergency Operations Center, having multiple representatives, from across campus, in one room. 

Also, the fact that the university had already invested in state-of-the-art technology, especially the new emergency notification system, really paid off.  We went from having roughly 6,500 people signed up for the notifications prior to the fires to more than 11,000 people now signed up.  It shows that sometimes people need an emergency to happen in order to take action, like signing up for the emergency notification system, and it also shows if your system works, people will use it.

Van Saun: What went well was the level of collaboration, cooperation and camaraderie that was exhibited in the face of this emergency.  Some of the people at the EOC had been evacuated, their loved ones were elsewhere, but they were still here.  I was also impressed by the amount of work that got done in a compressed time frame.
 
What we learned is the value of the exercises and training.  We also learned the value of the relationships we’ve formed with all the coordinating agencies, and what great relationships we have with the local community.  The Estancia Hotel, right across the street, offered hotel rooms to our employees in the EOC and our displaced employees right off the bat. 

And we learned you can always do more.  You can always take away from these experiences and do better.  Campus leaders have developed a list of recommendations, such as improving the displays and maps in the EOC and adding people in the field to enhance our communication.  We will now take a look at our lessons learned from this event, and we’ll adjust.  We’ll keep the cycle of preparedness and mitigation going.  We will continue to grow and learn, just like our students.

Van Saun: I’m proud of the people and the university, the way that we stepped up.  The people who reported to work, they were selfless.  I’m also proud of the way the university showed itself to the community, that we can take care of ourselves and help others in the community too. 

Van Saun: We focus on awareness, which is tied into education and preparedness.  We aim to help people to help themselves, to help them be conscious of their surroundings, and what they can do on an individual level so they can feel empowered when a disaster strikes.  The worst thing about crisis and disasters is that people feel helpless.  So we help people focus on the actions they can take to protect themselves and their families.

Van Saun: The first thing they can do is talk to their family members about what they would do in the event of a disaster.  It’s a good idea to create a “go kit” with basic supplies like water, canned goods, medication, blankets, a change of clothes, and other necessities so that you don’t have to rely on anyone for your basic needs for at least 72 hours.  It also allows you to get in your car and leave if you need to.

Another suggestion is to designate someone who lives out-of-state as the primary contact person during an emergency.  Many times during a disaster, phone lines will be congested locally.  During an emergency, you and your loved ones can contact the out-of-state designee to let him or her know you are safe.  The contact person can then relay that information to the rest of your family.

You should also practice with your family what you would do during an emergency.  You don’t want the first time to be the real time.

I think the recent wildfires will raise people’s awareness about emergency preparedness.  But unfortunately, unless people are directly impacted, their memories fade quickly.  The real impact will be what people do right now to prepare themselves and their families for the next disaster, while their memories are fresh.  Don’t wait for the next disaster.

Van Saun: When I got here, it was clear that our university leadership, including Vice Chancellor Steve Relyea and EH&S Director Steve Benedict, wanted emergency services to expand and do more.  So the first thing I did was a needs assessment.  I analyzed the university’s existing capability to respond to emergencies. 

One of the first things we did was focus on basic elements such as awareness and preparedness.  We wanted our campus leaders and emergency responders to understand the process of disaster response and crisis management, and the systems, protocols, and terminology.  We wanted them to know what an emergency operations center looked like, what their role was, and how their role would play out in a disaster scenario.  Everyone was given an emergency checklist for their area, and they had ownership of those lists.  I think we’re now ahead of a lot of universities in a lot of regards.

Van Saun: The support has really been amazing.  This campus administration has made emergency preparedness a priority.  Everyone from the Chancellor to the Vice Chancellor - Business Affairs, and across campus, have stepped up and shown initiative to improve our emergency preparedness and response.  I’m also very proud of our Campus Emergency Response Team (CERT) volunteers.  It’s comforting to have people who are willing to go out of their way to help their coworkers and friends.

Van Saun: The CERT volunteer program is based on a model developed by the County of Los Angeles and it got a lot of attention after 9/11.  We initiated our program about two years ago.  The Chancellor has supported this program to a huge degree.  The idea was to have neighbors helping neighbors.  We asked for volunteers who had a heart for service, and who wanted to be more prepared on an individual level and help their own community.  We then train and provide equipment for these volunteers.  I’m very proud of this program.  We have about 30 volunteers now and we’re always looking for more.  [For information on CERT, click here.]