USU has plan to face violence or other disaster in the future
If something were to happen at USU like the Virginia Tech massacre, or any natural disaster, the university and Cache Valley is well equipped and ready to help.
“We hope and pray that something like that never happens here, and should it happen, I have confidence in our police department both on campus and in Logan city to respond very rapidly and take decisive action to put an end to it,” said Mark Meaker, Logan city fire chief.
The university already has emergency evacuation plans and training for the possibility of a shooter on campus, said Steven Mecham, USU police chief.
“With terrorists’ attacks post 9/11, we’ve been concerned about that and preparing for that and now active shooters. We adapt our emergency operations plan to the event,” Mecham said. “As to how safe is the campus, it’s quite safe, we haven’t had an aggravated assault for many years on this campus.”
He said one main thing to be aware of is changes in friends, roommates or classmates, and said students should report those changes to the Counseling Center, the Student Service Center or the police.
“If they see red flags, they need to report those things and let officials look into it,” Mecham said. “That helps us; we can’t do it all. We have to rely on citizens to help us report situations.”
In case of emergencies, the fire department is ready to respond with medical help. Meaker said they have a procedure, the multicasualty incident protocol, that sets up an emergency scene management system.
The county will have three casualty incident trailers in the valley in the next two months – one in Smithfield, one in Hyrum and one in Logan, Meaker said.
“If it was a big enough shooting such as the one they had at Virginia Tech with 40 to 50 people being injured, we’d request more aid from surrounding cities in the area, such as Preston, Tremonton, Rich County and Brigham City,” Meaker said.
The county currently has eight ambulances with four staffed and four ready to be staffed in case of an emergency, Meaker said.
He said the county has a truck equipped with enough IV solutions, Band-Aids, backboards, oxygen splints and such to treat 100 to 150 trauma patients.
“It’s different for every situation,” said Cache County Fire Chief Gary Roberts. “A natural disaster mainly is what we’re preparing for or large structural collapse like the USU Spectrum or some event,” Roberts said.
He said they have worked with youth groups at the stadium and have been able to help them with heat stroke or whatever illness on the incident site.
“We can handle three mass casualty trailers that can handle about 250 patients apiece if we have a large scale medical incident. We also carry equipment on our truck. We’ve done some preplanning ahead of time, and from the medical side I think we can handle and incident like that,” Roberts said.
Although they may be prepared for any situation, no matter how large the numbers, one problem, Roberts said, is getting the message to the community.
Roberts said they have a contract with 610 KVNU to use their services in an emergency. They tell citizens to use the service, but many students don’t have a radio with them on campus.
“A lot of people don’t have access to a radio, so that’s not something we would rely heavily on in that situation, but it’s another avenue,” Mecham said.
Meacham said they have phone trees set up to get the word around campus, and they would also send police around to tell others who are not in buildings.
As for preparing for the worst, Executive Director of Public Relations and Marketing at USU John DeVilbiss said students don’t have a lot of drills in their classrooms on campus.
“It’s probably something that should be considered very seriously by all professors. They should be thinking about what we should do if we have to evacuate and have a brief discussion with students so they are aware,” DeVilbiss said.
DeVilbiss said a good idea would be to have professors instruct their students at the beginning of the semester about the emergency evacuation plan for their classroom and building.
“I think it’s a good idea that we should look at campuswide. It’s easy to become complacent,” he said.
He said things as basic as deciding on where the class would all meet is a good thing.
“You can never anticipate everything, and of course the horrors of Virginia Tech can only be described as one’s worst nightmare,” DeVilbiss said.
The best place to go to look for preparedness help on the state level, Roberts said, is the Web site www.ready.utah.gov.
“I think for a small county, this county is very well prepared for that type of an emergency. Hopefully we’ll never have it. But whether it’s an active shooter situation or a roof collapse because of heavy snow, or a terrorist action or whatever, we are very rapidly developing a very substantial emergency medical capability,” Meaker said.
-ranaebang@cc.usu.edu