Letter to the Campus Community
Dear Colleagues,
The University of New Hampshire has a comprehensive Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) that guides decision-making, communication, and coordination of response activities in the event of an emergency. Testing and refinement of the plan is ongoing under the leadership responsibility of UNH Deputy Police Chief Paul Dean.
The plan provides information that will save lives during emergencies or disasters, and hasten the resumption of normal UNH operations after these events. It outlines procedures for responding to and recovering from a variety of emergency and disaster situations, including fires, hazardous material spills, medical emergencies, bomb threats, or major accidents.
You can find the plan on the Emergency Preparedness website at http://www.unh.edu/emergency. I urge you all to visit the site and familiarize yourself with the procedures in place. It provides information on the steps UNH has already taken for disaster preparedness, what our community can do to prepare for emergencies, and how UNH will communicate disaster or emergency information to the community.
You should know that we have contracted with an emergency notification vendor called RoamSecure, and registration is free at http://alert.unh.edu. Any time you get a text alert, you will be given a very general description of the emergency with instructions to go to the UNH homepage for updates.
As we know from the past, the campus is not immune to emergency situations, whether it is fires, student life issues, snowstorms, or chemical spills in one of our science laboratories. We have competent and experienced first responders and other staff who are specifically trained to address these emergencies, and it is our hope that with an emergency operations plan approved and in place, along with Web resources for our community, we will be prepared in the event of an emergency.
Be safe.
Mark W. Huddleston
President