With the 2006 hurricane season less than two months away, the University of Houston is refining its emergency management plan with an eye toward coping with natural and man-made disasters.

“Over the past few months, the Emergency Management Team has been working hard to improve the emergency management plan based on what we learned last fall from Hurricanes Rita and Katrina. Our revised plan will be finished before the next hurricane season begins in June,” said John Rudley, vice president for administration and finance.

Rudley is chairing the team, which is enhancing the plan’s evacuation process and ride-out team
strategies and is creating an alternative Web-based communication system.

Some of the plan’s revisions include providing off-campus housing for students from other cities and nations and identifying the ride-out team — people who will stay on campus during a hurricane to quickly assess and repair damage.

“We are working on determining an evacuation strategy for students who call our campus home,” said Bob Schneller, executive director of safety and risk management. “We also learned during Hurricane Rita and Tropical Storm Allison that some people were on campus who shouldn’t have been. So, we’re developing a list of ride-out team members and creating identification badges for them.”

Schneller added that the committee is determining what buildings should be used to shelter ride-out teams and what upgrades, such as the installation of emergency generators, these
buildings may need.

In the area of information technology (IT), the committee is working to select a location outside of the Houston area that could provide UH with floor space and infrastructure to transfer IT operations if the university experienced a catastrophic event, said Sam Longoria, IT service continuity manager.

Additionally, UH is in the process of implementing the Public Information and Emergency Response (PIER) project.

PIER is an Internet-based tool that enables “us to maintain and enhance our ability to disseminate vital and critical information to students, faculty, staff, the Board of Regents and the public, not only in time of emergency, but also in general day-to-day activities,” Longoria said.

Other issues the committee is addressing include the purchase of emergency generators and fuel. The university has contracted with a company with locations outside of Houston to provide fuel during a disaster. And, the committee is updating UH’s emergency Web pages and identifying faculty and/or staff to serve as building monitors.

The committee is not just focusing its efforts on weather-related crises. It also is working on ways to handle health-related emergencies such as a possible avian flu outbreak among humans, Schneller said.

The avian flu is a contagious disease of animals caused by viruses that normally infect only birds but have, on rare occasions, infected humans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Health officials worldwide are concerned that a particular strain of the flu, H5N1, will change into a form that is highly infectious to humans and spreads easily from person to person.

“The flu is changing so rapidly that most American health workers believe that a vaccine must be developed that closely matches that particular virus,” said Dr. James Gray, UH Health Center chief physician. “Scientists say a vaccine probably will not be available for six months after a pandemic occurs.”

To prepare for a possible pandemic, the UH Health Center has formed a committee to gather
information on the flu and create an emergency plan, according to Floyd Robinson, center director.

“We are collecting and dissecting as much information as possible,” Robinson said, noting that Gray recently participated in the first Texas Pandemic Avian Flu conference. In May, Robinson will attend a national conference for university health center officials.

Robinson noted that current flu medications, such as Tamiflu, do not protect against the avian flu.

Tamiflu, which the Health Center’s pharmacy carries, only reduces the severity of flu symptoms, Gray said. The center will dispense Tamiflu only if its physicians order the vaccination, he said.

To avoid contracting the flu, Gray and Robinson recommend paying close attention to personal hygiene such as washing hands often.

Francine Parker
fparker@central.uh.edu