For three hours yesterday morning, the University's Office of Emergency Preparedness and the Albermarle County Emergency Management Office held an evacuation drill in Scott Stadium. The exercise simulated an evacuation of the stadium in the event of severe weather during a football game.
A good deal of planning clearly went into the drill. The event featured 29 participating emergency response agencies from in and around Charlottesville. University spokesperson Carol Wood said the goal was to foster strong communications among the different emergency services prior to an actual crisis.
This was a valuable exercise and the University was right to invest such energy into it. The major flaw, however, was the lack of student participation. In order to carry out the drill, organizers had participants fill three roles: evaluators to observe the action, controllers to coordinate communication among volunteers, and actors to mimic public reaction to a crisis. In the end, less than 20 students showed up, according to Associate Dean of Students Aaron Laushway.
Such a turnout certainly is less than desirable. Given the number of emergency responders involved, a better turnout could have more accurately modeled conditions in a real gameday crisis. University officials acknowledged that the timing of the drill - from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. on a Wednesday - was not optimal. The bigger problem, however, is that students were given no incentive to sacrifice several hours of their day for the cause.
To notify students, administrators sent two rounds of e-mails encouraging people to come out for the drill. Organizers also coordinated with Hoos Ready to involve some of its members in the activity. Nothing is wrong with either approach, but the poor attendance underscores that a more comprehensive effort should have been made.
First, it seems necessary to include a tangible incentive of some kind to encourage participation - altruism is a fairly weak force for motivating people. One idea is to offer a free t-shirt with a humorous emergency preparedness slogan, such as "I survived the Scott Stadium evacuation drill of 2009." This would serve two purposes: driving up attendance and also promoting the cause of emergency preparedness. True, this would cost the University money, but free t-shirts have been doled out by administrators for causes much less important. At the very least, a few items could be raffled off to participants at the end.
Other than souvenirs, some practical measures could be taken to boost attendance in the future. If at all possible, the University should consider moving the drill to a later time in the day. Most students have classes in the morning, and those who do not seem unlikely to wake up early for a volunteer preparedness exercise. Another option is to break down the three hour drill into three one-hour segments. Many students cannot allot a three hour chunk of their time during the week, but might be able to dedicate one or two hours without disrupting their schedules.
All told, the exercise yesterday appears to have run smoothly, but could have been much more valuable. The University community should appreciate the emergency service providers who dedicated their time - what better way to say thanks than with a large turnout? In the future, University officials should consider more innovative ways to increase student participation.
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