By Yurly Diakunchak
What do bomb threats, biohazards and radiation leaks have in common? All are covered by Ryerson’s new Emergency Awareness, Preparedness and Respone Plan (EAPRP).
The EAPRP details emergency procedures and the tasks of the emergency response coordination team members.
“What we are presenting is a new process by which Ryerson responds to emergencies,” said Janet Mays, the director of Equity, Harassment and Safety Services, at a Board of Directors meeting last Thursday. “This replaces a limited fire policy and was developed to cover many different potential incidents,” she said.
The new plan was thrown into action on Jan. 25 during the student protest bomb scare. Mays said the plan passed the test. “I can honestly say our part went like clockwork,” she said.
The plan was designed with flexibility in mind. For instance, the composition of teams responsible for action during an emergency changes with the nature of the incident. A bomb threat would be dealt with by Mays and the Safety and Security Operations staff, whereas a hazardous spill would be the jurisdiction of the Manager of Occupational Health and Safety and the Chemical, Radiation and Biohazard officers.
Further flexibility is added by a built-in review process.
“The policy will be audited on a yearly basis to update it,” said Karen Craig, Manager of Security.
Mays said community input in emergency situations was also incorporated into the plan. “We had some concern as to what level we should be involving the community in the case of a bomb threat,” Mays said. However, she added that the Ryerson Faculty Association wanted to be a part of the emergency response process. The plan is intended to make handling problems like bomb threats safer for the Ryerson community.
“The old rules said you just leave (the building), but that is quite dangerous,” Mays said. “It is better to eyeball the environment first to see if anything is out of order.”
This is where the emergency responses teams would step in. Interestingly enough, Mays said the police do not normally arrive on the scene of a bomb threat unless an actual device is found.
Another area that the EAPRP will address is media communication during and after emergencies. This was prompted by media intrusions onto the campus after the murder of Elena Tchoudakova. Mays said that media poured into Ryerson and questioned people in the halls before anyone had a chance to collect their senses. “It was hard on students and faculty,” she said. From now on, all outside media will have to go through the proper channels to gain access to the campus.
A user-friendly guide detailing the EAPRP will be ready by spring and will be distributed throughout Ryerson. Mays said she is not sure what the final cost for the guide or the EAPRP will be, but that all of the work was done on staff time so there is no separate budget for the project.
Training for staff has not been built into the EAPRP, because the “expectation is that people on each team already know their job,” Mays said.
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