College mandates pandemic planning

Author: Lea Calderon-Guthe

The Emergency Planning Steering Committee sent a student-wide e-mail on Oct. 12 informing that all students must enter personal evacuation plans on BannerWeb prior to registration for spring courses, in an effort by the College to improve its pandemic readiness. The e-mail was a follow-up of an notice from the Health Center in March of 2007 announcing the College's plan to completely shut down in the event of a pandemic flu outbreak.

"In comparing our plan, which involves complete campus evacuation, to other schools' that are trying to have partial campus evacuations, I think our model has the best opportunity to provide the most health and safety to the students," said Dr. Mark Peluso, director of the Parton Health Center and head of the Pandemic Planning Committee.

Middlebury College was among to first to establish a plan for a complete evacuation over a year ago. Peluso said the logic behind a complete evacuation is simple, arguing that a partial evacuation makes little sense.

"The models that we're being presented with for pandemic flu suggest that we can't guarantee that we will have staff or resources such as heat, electricity or food delivered to the campus," said Peluso. "Then we'd have students that we would feel responsible for, but we would not have the staff or supplies to provide for them."

In order to access registration for the Spring 2008 term, students must first provide a personal evacuation plan on BannerWeb which identifies two locations to which they would travel should the campus unexpectedly close. Students would be able to log onto BannerWeb at any time in the future to view or update their plans.

BannerWeb will also be utilized as a database to store phone numbers of students who confirm their evacuation plans. The College would then utilize this database in if it needs to notify students of an emergency.

The horrors of a pandemic flu appear imminent, but the evidence that scientists are currently working with to predict a pandemic flu outbreak is solely historical: records show that the world can expect a severe pandemic every 80 to 100 years, with the last one being the Spanish Influenza of 1918.

"If it never happens, great, but we're ready for it," said Peluso.

While a potential influenza epidemic spurred the formation of an evacuation plan, the Emergency Planning Steering Committee has since begun more extensive work on other kinds of emergency preparedness.

"The planning for the pandemic initiated a whole emergency planning process, and then events like Virginia Tech, the Valentine's Day blizzard, the power outage on July Fourth, all of these events have happened and we have been able to look at them and use a planning framework and prepare for them," said Peluso. "I think it's been a valuable experience, overall, for the institution."

After the College had formulated its plans for various emergency situations, another question arose: what to ask of the students? John Emerson, Dean of Planning, Secretary of the College and Co-chair of the Emergency Planning Steering Committee said, given the gravity of the potential situations, the answer was simple.

"The feeling of the Planning Committee was that this is pretty serious stuff," said Emerson. "We have got to be serious about student plans being a requirement and planning in advance because otherwise, if we have avian flu or some other catastrophe and we have to shut down, we'll have a nightmare here if we haven't anticipated what would be involved."

Emerson admits that he is not fond of making individual evacuation plans a requirement in order to register for spring classes, but he also recognizes that there are few other ways to get students to take the process seriously. Emerson says the Planning Committee worked hard to make the process as painless as possible, and he estimates that actually registering a personal evacuation plan through BannerWeb should take less than five minutes. Several students who have registered already found this to be true.

"I had to figure out where I was going, but once I knew where I was going, it only took me five minutes," said Katie Zurbach '11. "I had to talk it over with my parents and figure it out, so that took a little time, but not that long."

Many students also think that requiring personal evacuation plans prior to registration is a logical idea.

"I think it's fair for them to require you to have it to register for classes," said Zurbach. "It makes sure that everybody does it and everyone has a place to go."

When it comes down to the actual plan formation, some students, like Shane Spinell '08.5 from Connecticut, have it easy. Though he has not registered yet, Spinell says he would just drive home. Other students like Danil Rudoy '11, from Russia, along with other international students, would have a more difficult time.

"I have an aunt who lives in New York, so I guess she is closest," said Rudoy. "Also, since I'm an international student, I have a host father who lives south of Middlebury. I guess if something really terribly happens, he will help me, but I would not be able to go home."