After a weather emergency left buildings on campus without power earlier this year, students may be looking for ways to stay informed regarding emergencies on campus.
On Friday Aug. 25, a severe thunderstorm caused buildings on the south campus of Baldwin Wallace University to lose power for approximately seven hours early Friday morning.
Due to this severe weather event, students are looking for information that could help them in the event of a weather emergency such as a severe thunderstorm.
“Students can call our office directly and have someone help you that way, there’s also information in the handbook about weather emergencies ranging from fire protocols to winter weather safety,” Kristin Brewer, assistant director of the department of Student Affairs, said.
The BW handbook can be accessed through the department of Student Affairs on the BW website and contains the information that students can use if they are concerned about how to stay safe while on campus.
Another way that students can receive information in emergency situations is by making sure that they are signed up to receive text and email alerts from BW.
“RAs on duty, make us aware first when the RA calls it to central staff and then Dan Karp’s team is next to respond with BW alerts,” Brewer said.
According to Daniel Karp, the Vice President of Student Affairs, BW uses the Rave text alerts. These alerts are used to deliver information to students about situations occurring on campus. These alerts are sent out about safety concerns, emergency situations, and weather emergencies.
“Our protocol for these situations is to acknowledge that an event has occurred, update when we can, and offer a resolution,” Karp said.
When a weather emergency occurs, Karp and his team follow a process in order to decide what to do next.
“We monitor what might be an impending weather situation, depending on the outcome then it is decided what to do. Things that we look at are if you are able to cross campus safely, another concern is our commuter population and are they able to travel to campus safely,” Karp said.
Before text alerts regarding severe weather are sent out to students, the department of Student Affairs processes the information accessible to them at that specific time, to ensure that the correct information is being released.
“It takes some time to figure out the scope, like what buildings are affected and who are affected, so we try to make sure we have accurate information before we send it out,” Brewer said.
Other information regarding weather safety can be found on the BW website. In addition to this, information relating to severe weather protocols is released to students through emails when the need arises.
Students can further inform themselves about severe weather safety by making sure they are signed up for Rave alerts so that they can be informed when a severe weather event or other emergency occurs. Students can also be more informed by signing up for weather alerts for the Berea area as well as the Rave text alerts through BW’s emergency response system.
