Readiness

• Disaster Preparedness Guide for Individuals and Families (available in English and Spanish) – The American Red Cross
• Inclusive Preparedness Resources:  Disaster Preparedness Guide for Individuals with Disabilities – The American Red Cross
• Disaster Preparedness Guide for you Pets – The Humane Society of the United States
• Your Personal Emergency Kit Checklist – May 2023
• Hot Weather Safety Guide – September 2021

Supervisors:  Ensure assigned personnel are aware of emergency procedures and appropriate means for reporting emergencies.

• Maintaining Rosters:  Maintain staff rosters and establish procedures to ensure your assigned personnel can be accounted for in an emergency. This includes situations where supervisors and assigned personnel work in different locations.
  
• Assisting with Accountability:  Take accountability of your assigned personnel at rally points, assembly areas, and shelter areas and report those missing to UMBC Police.
• Controlling Visitors:  Visitors go to their escorts’ rally points, assembly areas, and shelter areas and remain there until accounted for.
• Ensuring Appropriate Actions:  Take appropriate actions to ensure your assigned personnel can safely evacuate their building or relocate during incidents and exercises.  Encourage your personnel to cooperate with law enforcement, first-responders, and emergency team members during incidents and exercises.
• Assisting with Active Assailant Preparedness:  Facilitate Active Assailant Awareness and encourage your personnel to attend training.
• Assisting Staff and Faculty with Access and Functional Needs:  Encourage assigned personnel to self-identify with the Office of Accessibility and Disability Services (ADS). Supervisors are encouraged to help develop personal emergency and evacuation plans for assigned personnel who require assistance.

Classroom and Lab Instructors:  In facilities where classrooms or labs are present, instructors may assist students during emergency conditions. Responsibilities include:

• Maintaining Class Rosters:  Maintain class rosters and establish procedures to ensure your students can be accounted for in an emergency.
• Assisting with Accountability:  Take accountability of your assigned personnel at rally points, assembly areas, and shelter areas and report those missing to UMBC Police.
• Controlling Visitors:  Visitors go to their escorts’ rally points, assembly areas, and shelter areas and remain there until accounted for.
• Ensuring Appropriate Actions:  Take appropriate actions to ensure your students can safely evacuate their building or relocate during incidents and exercises.  Encourage students to cooperate with law enforcement, first-responders, and emergency team members during incidents and exercises.
• Assisting with Active Assailant Preparedness:  Facilitate Active Assailant Awareness and encourage your students to attend training.
• Assisting Students with Access and Functional Needs:  Students may self-identify with the Office of Student Disability Services (SDS). SDS can provide information about available campus resources (see https://sds.umbc.edu/) and assist with personal emergency and evacuation plans for students who require assistance.

Personal emergency and evacuation plans may be necessary for some occupants. These may involve temporary or permanent mobility impairments, medical concerns, vision, hearing, mental, or physical impairments. Examples may include occupants unable to independently evacuate or relocate using stairs, and occupants unable to observe visual or auditory alarms.

• Emergency Accessibility Assistance:  Occupants who may be stranded due to accessibility may contact UMBC Police at (410) 455-5555 for help.
• Personal Emergency and Evacuation Plans.  These may include: 1) identifying and training volunteers to provide assistance; 2) assistance devices for emergency notification or mobility; 3) ensuring individuals are not separated from assistance devices or service animals; and 4) designating temporary refuge locations if evacuation is not physically possible.
• Accessibility Routes, Parking, and Entrances:  Accessibility maps indicate routes into and between facilities to support occupants with unique accessibility needs.
• For assistance, contact:
  • Office of Accessibility and Disability Services (ADS):  Stephanie Lazarus, Accessibility Manager & ADA Coordinator.  Email:  slazar@umbc.edu, Office: (410) 455-5745.
  • Office of Student Disability Services (SDS):  Tawny McManus, Asst. Vice Provost, Accessibility & Disability Services.  Email:  tmcmanus@umbc.edu, Office: (410) 455-2459.

Our team will conduct a walkthrough of your space, review occupant behaviors, and identify ways to apply active assailant survivor actions in a real environment.  Email schaible@umbc.edu to schedule a readiness assessment for your facility.  Objectives:

• Identify potential solutions and resources that can improve readiness for all building occupants.
• Verify our ability to use existing resources, take immediate action, and mitigate negative impacts of an incident.
• Identify potential changes to the physical environment and to workplace behavior to promote safety, security, and overall situational awareness.
• Readiness Assessment Overview and Methodology – June 2023

The UMBC Emergency Manager can conduct a test, drill, or exercise for your team.

• Tests are used for existing systems like radios, sirens, public address systems, or any tools that need their operational capabilities verified.
• Drills allow your team to practice specific operations or functions that can prepare your team for more extensive exercises.
  • Stop Light Drill Protocol:  We can use a “Stop Light Drill” to provide participants with a safe, conversational method of practicing response to threats and hazards that may have complex or triggering subject matter.  This type of drill uses a “green-light – red-light” process to initiate, pause, discuss, and continue the learning action.
  • Fire Drills:  Drills involving evacuation of occupants from their facility can be complicated.  The UMBC Emergency Manager can review our Fire Drill Planning Guide with your team to develop plans for safe and effective evacuation at a UMBC facility.
• Tabletop Exercises (TTX) are used to analyze an emergency situation in an informal, stress-free environment.  They are designed to facilitate constructive discussion between participants.  A successful TTX requires group participation to develop innovative solutions to problems.
• Functional Exercises are interactive events that test our capability to respond to a simulated incident in the most realistic manner possible.  We focus on the coordination, integration, and interaction of policies, procedures, roles, and responsibilities.  Unlike a TTX, a functional exercise is designed to stress your team and determine their ability to perform under the pressure of simulated response.

The UMBC Emergency Manager can facilitate an After-Action Review (AAR) with your team.  An AAR is a process for understanding what actually happened during a drill, exercise, or an actual incident.  It includes a timeline of events and actions, best practices, observations, lessons learned, and recommendations for improvement.

• Best practices are initiatives or actions that made the response more effective.  These are positive things you would recommend for similar situations.
• Observations are actions that did not follow established procedures and caused problems.
• Lessons learned are issues not that were not covered by current plans, procedures, or training.  We only include a lesson learned if it will result in a positive change.
• Observations and lessons learned are listed as “CRITICAL” if they involve life-safety or security.
• After-Action Review form:  Your department can use this online tool to share a lesson learned, observation, or best practice from a drill, exercise, or an actual incident.  This can be a response action, decision, procedure, or other activity that was either positive or negative.  Responses from this online tool will be shared with the UMBC Emergency Manager.