As part of Health and Safety Week, Cal State Long Beach will be conducting a campus wide shelter-in-place drill on Tuesday, Oct. 21.
Beginning with a test of the BeachALERT! Emergency Notification System (ENS), the drill will last approximately 15 minutes, from 2:30 p.m. to 2:45 p.m.
All staff and faculty members are expected to discuss the drill with students in the fifteen minutes that comprise the event. The drill will be discussion based, with no barricading or evacuations taking place, according to the CSULB Emergency Information site.
“We do evacuations every year, so we practice a lot of getting out of buildings, but we haven’t practiced staying indoors,” emergency management and preparedness coordinator Jonathan Rosene said. “The drill was also established due to the Cal State Fullerton incident in Dec. 2012, when armed suspects led the campus to initiate a lockdown for several hours.”
Rosene said this is the first time the drill will be carried out on campus as an effort to educate students, faculty and staff on how to be prepared in the event of any emergency or natural disaster.
A shelter-in-place order requires everyone to stay put inside a building, according to the CSULB Emergency Information website. The order is given when officials have determined that conditions that are present may cause harm to those either outside or in open areas and that seeking safe shelter is recommended.
Students who are not in class are encouraged to participate in the drill by reviewing the shelter drill information page, Rosene said. The document contains additional information about the drill as well as various scenarios designed to facilitate dialogue about the event.
Statistically, severe weather events such as storms, hail or tornadoes would most likely affect CSULB rather than an active shooter, Rosene said.
“If you’re prepared for an active shooter, you’re prepared for many other things,” Rosene said.
In case of an actual emergency, everyone on campus will be notified of a shelter-in-place order via BeachALERT! ENS. The nature of the event will be given along with the shelter-in-lace order. It is important that personal information MyCSULB is up to date in order to receive the message, Rosene said.
“I think denial of reality we face increases your risk greatly,” Rosene said. “A lot of people get anxious and nervous when they start thinking about the possibilities of things happening and they’d rather just ignore it. The more we encourage participation and give people the knowledge, they’ll be better prepared.”
Feedback and questions about the drill should be forwarded to campus Emergency and Preparedness Coordinator Jonathan Rosene [email protected].