Reports of a quiet 2009 hurricane season aren’t soothing David Rivero, the University of Miami’s police chief. The season is still young, and Rivero has enough experience to know storms often appear with less-than-optimal advance warning.
Rivero still remembers Hurricane Andrew, which devastated South Florida in 1992.
“If the forecasters tell us it will be eight [storms] instead of 10, it doesn’t matter to us,” Rivero said. “We know all it takes is one big storm.”
In late May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued a bulletin with an outlook for a “near-normal Atlantic hurricane season.”
Chief Rivero and his seasoned emergency response team will be ready to spring into action, he said. The 150 “critical group” first responders have had training led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) this year. All campus safety officers are required to undergo NIMS ICS training.
Back-up generators are tested. Satellite phones are issued to each responder. MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) and other stored food are checked. The emergency operations center at the university has room for 20, including President Donna Shalala, the former Clinton Administration cabinet member.
“We can survive for three days, if the big one hits us,” Rivera said, adding that FEMA resources usually flow into an area 36 hours after a storm hits.
Further north in Tallahassee, Dave Bujak, the emergency management coordinator at Florida State University, has also been laying groundwork. A Higher Ed Mutual Aid drill tested mutual aid requests via the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) process.
During an incident, requests are submitted from one university to another via the two emergency operations centers using EMAC protocol. Bujak advises campus safety administrators to ensure they have an EMAC agreement in place before requesting assistance from an out-of-state agency. The process provides guidelines for FEMA reimbursement, licensure and insurance issues.
“I cannot state this any more simply or clearly,” Bujak wrote in an e-mail summarizing the drill. “Never bring in assistance from across state lines without having a fully executed EMAC mission agreement.”
Both universities are tapping into training and other FEMA resources. The agency that came under fire for its mishandling of the relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina will be ready for a big storm, President Obama told an audience at the National Response Coordination Center in Washington D.C. in late May.
