Illustration by Annette Farrell
An in-depth look at Whitworth University’s emergency response plan
By Kyle Kim
Editor’s note: this story was originally published for The Whitworthian’s March 14. 2011 issue.
Whitworth’s emergency response plan, which outlines response strategies in times of campus emergencies, provides flexibility while still providing a uniform and efficient guide to managing disasters, said the university risk management official who compiled the plan.
The university emergency plan that complies to standards set by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is a departure from previous Whitworth response plans in which emergency procedures have been categorized by incident, said Marisha Hamm, manager of environmental health, safety and risk management, who developed the plan.
“Emergencies aren’t predictable so you can’t have a predictable emergency response plan,” Hamm said. “The whole point of ICS is that you can’t plan emergencies.”
The Whitworth University Emergency Response Plan follows the structure of an Incident Command System (ICS) which is an approach developed by the National Incident Management System (NIMS) and Homeland Security.
Homeland Security developed NIMS and ICS to create “a core set of doctrine, principles, terminology, and organizational processes to enable effective, efficient and collaborative incident management at all levels,” according to the FEMA website.
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