In the Kern Community College Emergency Planning and Procedures Manual it states that the school is committed to the safety and protection of its most important asset: people.
Now, Bakersfield College will see it in the works.
Fire drills have been implemented into the emergency preparedness plan that the administration is conducting. The first fire drill of what will be a once-a-month occurrence took place in the Humanities Building on Sept. 24.
According to BC President William Andrews, it took a total of about 20 minutes from the time the alarm went off to get everyone back in their classrooms and on task.
“If we’re trained on the emergency plan, then we’ll be able to do the right thing when the time comes down to it,” said Andrews. “We’ll be conducting a drill once a month by building. The buildings will be occupied and professors will be notified to make sure they are prepared and involved.”
The drill involved a captain of the local fire department, who observed the drill, and BC’s safety and security team, led currently by Sgt. Chris Counts. Once students were in place out of the classroom, it took 7 1/2 minutes to clear the building. And it took another 10 minutes to confirm an all clear.
“The captain only recommended that when we do conduct a fire drill, we get people farther away from the building so the fire department can work,” said Andrews.
Regular fire drills are just one of the proposed actions being taken to prepare for emergencies on campus.
“This can be anything from a power outage to a major event on campus,” said Chiang.
According to Chiang, a directive was issued from the office of the California Community Colleges Chancellor about emergency preparedness.
Chiang said, “We actually went to training in March, just a couple weeks before Virginia Tech.”
“In the wake of Virginia Tech, we had an ‘explosion’ threat,” said Chiang. “We mobilized the JIC team (joint information command) within two weeks of actually being trained how to do it and realized that we know what we’re doing.”
The Emergency Response Team is comprised of the BC faculty and every person has their own job with Andrews in charge. Chiang said, “He is the lead on all the teams. He has six people that report to him and it’s an amazing pyramid that goes down from there.”
Chiang’s title in the JIC structure is Public Information Officer and some of her responsibilities include notifying the campus as well as the media in an emergency situation.
More information regarding the safety efforts under way at BC is available on the BC Web site.
“It’s all a matter of trying to anticipate what might possibly happen and hoping and praying that nothing ever does,” said Chiang.