Georgetown recently received a grant of $549,302 from the U.S. Department of Education to enhance the university’s emergency preparedness initiatives on Main Campus and at the Medical Center.
The grant will be funded over an 18-month period to address the four phases of emergency management at Georgetown, says
Rocco DelMonaco, vice president of
university safety. Those phases include prevention-mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery.
“This is an effort to enhance existing processes that have been at Georgetown for two decades,” DelMonaco said.
The grant allows DelMonaco and his office -- including
Peter Luger, executive director of safety finance and administration, and
Whit Chaiyabhat, director of emergency management and operations continuity -- to fund training for various departments all over campus on evacuation processes, infectious disease outbreak, threat assessment and business continuity plans.
Additionally, the office plans to strengthen emergency management on campus by focusing on the addition and replenishing of supplies such as two-way radios, first-aid kits, CPR and first-aid training guides and face masks that are a part of pandemic planning.
“In the past year and a half, we’ve had Norovirus, and we’ve been dealing with H1N1 for six months now,” Luger explained. “While we still want to fill in some blanks in this plan, we’re light years ahead of where we were a year ago.”
This past fiscal year, university safety has conducted two universitywide emergency response team table-top training exercises.
“We want faculty and staff to know this training is available to them on campus,” said Chaiyabhat, who applied for the grant.
University safety wants to expand a community emergency response team (CERT) effort through the grant to a wider campus population. They plan to offer up to 100 spots to faculty and staff for CERT training, with preference given to campus floor and building marshals. Those interested should contact the
university safety office.
“Because it’s funded by the grant, this training may not be available after the 18 months is up,” Chaiyabhat said. “So, people should take advantage of the opportunities.”
Additionally, the office wants the Georgetown community to know it’s available for helping to design business continuity plans specific to academic and staff departments.
Business continuity plans can be the saving grace when natural disasters or outbreaks occur, said Chaiyabhat.
“When you’re dealing with property damage, people may no longer have a space to work, let alone the information on their computers,” he said.
The H1N1 pandemic is a good test for departments, Luger added.
“We’ve been talking about how we will take care of the students, but what we’re (also) looking at is what happens when the staff starts to be impacted,” he said. “We look at what happens when, for example, everyone in payroll gets sick or when a professor can’t teach a course due to illness.”
Further funding goes toward an internship program established this summer for graduate students interested in government, security studies or disaster management. “It’s a chance for students to get a little money, get a little practice in and learn about careers in security studies and emergency management,” Chaiyabhat said.
The office will begin accepting applications for the academic year later this fall, and applications are open to graduate students all over the country, with preference given to Georgetown students. “This is one way students can have influence in building a culture of preparedness at their own university.”
