Gcsu crisis plan

    The violent Virginia Tech rampage, leaving 33 students dead, is creating a different kind of awareness in Milledgeville as college officials reevaluate emergency procedures.
    The Emergency Disaster Plan, the original title of GCSU’s crisis plan, was written several years ago, far beyond any known point of origin. The crisis plan was written with the intention to act as a fluid document, constantly facing revisions. Revisions have been at a standstill since November 2005.
    In the light of such a tragedy officials are now striving to tighten security measures.     Richard Goodson, Deputy Director of Public Safety, feels that the current plan is very good. 
    “The areas I believe need work are training, access to the plan and interoperability throughout the university and outside agencies,” Goodson said.
Georgia College is currently participating in tabletop drills to teach administration how to react to difficult emergency situations.
“We are looking to expand these simulations to full-scale exercises involving on campus and off campus response,” Goodson said. 
     Practical exercises to test response skills in the presence of an active shooter are also vital to testing the crisis plan.
     Emergency Preparedness Director, Eugene Bertrand, believes that implementing a cell phone database will raise the awareness of a campus intruder.
     “I am currently tweaking and reworking the entire plan to include every elementof the university community and outside emergency officials,” Bertrand said.
    Students have also been faced with the harsh reality of the brutality in Blacksburg, Va. Erin McNealy, GCSU sophomore chemistry major,  is more observant of her surroundings.
“I used to think that Georgia College was a sort of gated community but now I realize that you can never be perfectly safe all the time,” McNealy said.
As Virginia Tech strives to recover from this tragedy, GCSU is learning how to prevent and minimize such astonishing tragedies.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Apr 27 2007. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry