Critical management

Rapid communication is key to getting help where it’s needed most, according to Chuck Green, director of UI Public Safety. Thanks to procedures outlined in the University’s Critical Incident Management Plan, on the night of April 13 Public Safety officers got word back quickly to headquarters that tornado damage to campus was minimal. Green shifted Public Safety’s priority to teaming up with Iowa City police and firefighters to help residents of Iowa City, where damage was extensive, including the Alpha Chi Omega sorority house (above) on the corner of Washington and Governor streets, where a direct tornado hit tore off the roof and took down an exterior wall. Photo by Kirk Murray.

When a tornado ripped through Iowa City on April 13, it wasn’t a complete disaster. Years of work on the University’s Critical Incident Management Plan paid off for those charged with ensuring the safety of UI students, staff, and faculty.

The plan makes up Chapter 16 of the UI Operations Manual. First published in January 2001, the plan has helped UI officials deal with events both small and large, from unruly behavior to a visit by a former U.S. president. But the recent tornado put the plan to a severe test that gave Chuck Green, director of UI Public Safety, and others their best chance yet to see how well the plan protects the UI community.

“It was managed chaos,” says Green, who is a chief architect on the plan begun under UI President Mary Sue Coleman’s direction in the 1990s. “But the plan worked. Communication went well—those of us charged with responding knew what to do and could relay instructions and information. And it was amazing to see how fast Steve Parrott’s people [in University Relations] got information up on the web. Don Guckert’s people [in Facilities Management] were out there immediately and did an incredible job clearing debris and making our streets passable.”

	President David Skorton visits with students and staff the morning after a tornado hit the Alpha Chi Omega sorority. Photo by Tom Jorgensen.

But the plan did not prepare Green and his officers for the crowds who filled the streets shortly after the tornado struck. Green would like to step up safety education at the start of the tornado season, as well as research new advanced warning systems, including paging or calling systems that would send an alert to all 125 campus buildings at the touch of a button from the public safety dispatcher.

The April 13 tornado destroyed only one campus building—the motor pool. But it was just one block from the University Services Building that houses personnel and employment records, headquarters Facilities Management, and serves as the primary site for Information Technology Services.

“For an institution of this size and with its dependency on advanced technology, it’s critical to have a robust primary site for our communication and information technologies, as well as a backup remote site,” says Steve Fleagle, UI chief information officer. 

Fleagle is a member of the Critical Incident Management team. With computer-heavy Lindquist Center and the UI Power Plant also close to the campus’s only direct tornado strike, Fleagle feels lucky not to be still working 24-hour days. But he has paid attention to lessons learned at universities hit by Hurricane Katrina last summer. 

“My counterpart at Louisiana State University said that it was little things that made big differences,” Fleagle says. “One thing Louisiana State did was have a web server on a different campus so they could redirect web traffic to that site.”

Fleagle is looking into a mutual emergency web site backup plan with the University of Northern Iowa and Iowa State University.

No specific local or national event—such as the Gang Lu shooting in 1991 or the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes—sparked the creation of the University’s Critical Incident Management Plan, Green says. An old plan had been in the works for years but never was issued, according to Green. President Coleman and Doug True, UI senior vice president of finance and operations, urged Green along with representatives from the University’s Facilities Management, Risk Management, and Health Protection offices to take up the cause anew.

The new plan covers a lot of ground. It focuses on specific types of crises: bomb threats, civil protests, explosions, fire, flood, hazardous materials incidents, infrastructure failure, snow and ice storms, tornadoes, and violence. The plan not only assigns first-responder responsibilities but also provides general information for staying safe, according to Green. UI departments can supplement the plan as needed, such as developing fire drills and teaching employees how to use fire extinguishers.

The April 13 tornado flattened the motor pool. If it had continued on a path to University Services Building just down the street, it would have hit the site that houses personnel and employment records, as well as much of the University’s technological and communication infrastructure. Steve Fleagle, UI chief information officer and a member of the Critical Incident Management team, is looking into a mutual emergency web site backup plan with the University of Northern Iowa and Iowa State University. Photo by Tom Jorgensen.

Green says practicing every part of the plan would be an impossibility, but Public Safety has run practice sessions on the bomb threat plan and has received plenty of real-world practice in recent years handling civil protests, hazardous material incidents, infrastructure failures, bad weather, and even violence.

Green and his officers even work at least six months in advance to update and improve planning to keep football Saturdays safe. 

“There’s probably no one disaster scenario that worries me most, because anything that could cause loss of life is a serious concern,” Green says. “But something going seriously wrong on a football Saturday would be a nightmare.”

It is reassuring to see checklists and step-by-step instructions on how to handle critical situations, Green says. Under the leadership of Chris Atchison in the College of Public Health, he and others on campus are drafting an addendum that outlines the University’s response to a pandemic.

But Green also thinks everyone shares responsibility for keeping the University safe.

“Probably the most important next step we could take would be more advertising to remind people that the plan is out there,” he says. “We would like people to look at it long before they face an incident.”

Green also invites UI staff and faculty members to send suggestions for improving the Critical Incident Management Plan. The plan is available at www.uiowa.edu/~our/opmanual/v/16.htm.

by Gary Kuhlmann