Management Topic: Safety Series Part 3: Emergency Management Overview
Dear Colleagues,
This month’s Management Tips wraps up our three-part health and safety series with an article about Emergency Preparedness and the Office of Emergency Management. We hope you have enjoyed this series and have a better understanding of the resources available to you to stay safe and healthy.
What is Emergency Management? And how can the UCLA community best be prepared for an emergency?
Emergency Management is an ongoing cyclical process involving four parts: Mitigation, Preparedness, Response, and Recovery.
These four pillars are what UCLA Office of Emergency Management (OEM) is responsible for at the UCLA campus and its off-campus facilities. While UCLA OEM has had to engage the response and recovery phases for incidents in the past (i.e. COVID-19 pandemic, Pauley Pavilion flood, and protests), it is safe to say most of our day-to-day operations are spent on mitigation and preparedness.
Mitigation: A campus Hazard Vulnerability Assessment (HVA) is typically performed every three years to determine the risks and potential mitigation associated with the UCLA campus and properties. Improved infrastructure and other non-structural activities are key components of ongoing mitigation to reduce the effects of an emergency.
Preparedness: Using an all-hazards approach, OEM develops and maintains a library of campus Emergency Plans which describe how and who will engage in response and recovery efforts when disasters and incidents arise. OEM works with campus leadership, divisions, and departments to educate, exercise, and test systems or processes that are vital to campus response.
Response: In the event of an emergency, 911 (Fire, Police, Medics) are always our first responders and first course of action for incident stabilization. As the situation grows, OEM may need to activate the campus Emergency Operations Center (EOC) working with campus leadership, who serve a critical role in emergency response and recovery for the Bruin community. The EOC allows campus leaders to coordinate and direct emergency efforts such as evacuation, shelters, and mass care.
Recovery: This phase can often be the longest ranging from debris clean-up and economic recovery to housing.
How can the UCLA community prepare for emergencies?
OEM has three emergency communication tools used to inform the campus community about emergencies and response:
- BruinAlert will be activated in the event of an imminent threat or potentially serious emergency to quickly inform students, staff, and faculty of dangerous situations on campus. All staff and student email addresses are automatically enrolled in BruinAlert. We encourage managers to remind their personnel and/or students to update their contact information as needed via My UCLA to receive text messages or customize their emergency contacts. Family and friends can also enroll in the system by texting “BRUINALERT” to 888777.
- Bruins Safe Online (BSO) is UCLA’s emergency website and functions as the official source for current emergency and safety conditions on campus. Under normal conditions, the site will state that UCLA is operating normally, but in exigent situations, the site will be updated regularly with more detailed information.
-
- Social Media – OEM uses social media channels on Twitter and Instagram to increase awareness and education about emergency response and to communicate best practices (i.e. earthquake preparedness safety as part of the Great ShakeOut each October).
We encourage our campus community to utilize these fantastic resources and to find additional information and tools for personal preparedness and business continuity on the OEM website. We would love to hear from you. Please contact us with all inquiries at uclaoem@ehs.ucla.edu or (310) 825-6800.
Interested in reviewing prior months’ topics? Visit our Monthly Management Tips website.
Do you have feedback, questions or a suggested topic you would like to learn more about? Please email: managementtips@ucla.edu.
Want to receive Monthly Management Tips emails? Sign up for our list!
