delegated to the following other individuals: the EMC, the Director of Facilities Management/Campus Facility Managers, the VP of Communications designate, and the VP – Information Technology designate. The following are areas that should be considered when sending out a message and deciding on what type of message should be sent: a. Hazard Type • What is the hazard? (Building fire, tornado, hazardous materials incident) • What is the impact to NLU? (Minor, major, catastrophic) • What is the potential for the situation to worsen and is the situation under control? b. Life Safety and Property Protection • What is the potential for serious injury or death? • What is the potential for damage to property? • What is the potential for disruption to normal course of business? c. Urgency • How soon does the message need to go out? (Seconds, hours, days) • Is there time for approval? d. Audience • Who needs to be warned? (Administration, faculty, staff, students, guests) • How many people need to be warned? (Dozens, hundreds, thousands) e. System(s) Capabilities • What are the limitations of each system? (Limited audience, lengthy delivery time) • How quickly can the messages be sent? (Immediately, minutes, hours)
The following are eight questions media always ask that we should be prepared to respond to:
1) What happened? 2) Who is in charge?
3) Has this been contained? 4) Are victims being helped? 5) What can we expect? 6) What should we do? 7) Why did this happen? 8) Did you have forewarning?
Please note that there are no clear-cut rules to use for every situation as to the communication type to use. For instance, in some situations, a mass broadcast within the affected area might cause more harm or disruption to the event that may already be occurring. The President, EMC, the local facility managers and first responders will often need to make a quick assessment of the situation and decide on the best communication avenue according to the best available information they have. However, depending on the situation, time may be of the essence so responders should be prepared to act, respond and communicate quickly. The following are the types of messages that can be sent: • Text Messages – This component relies on voluntary participation where a member of the University Community signs up to receive text messages. The delivery time of messages is less than 30 minutes. Each message is limited to 150 characters, which limits the message content. The telecommunications department has pre-formatted messages ready for most types of
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