Scheduled fire drills will be taking place this week between Oct. 3 and 4 throughout various locations on Pepperdine’s campus.
Over 50 buildings will be evacuated including all residential living areas, athletic and recreational buildings and academic facilities on the Malibu campus.
These drills are being administered to test the multiple technology outlets Pepperdine’s alarm system utilizes. The Everbridge Aware System is the notification service that allows Pepperdine’s Emergency Services to contact all students, faculty and staff members through all – modes of communication when there is an emergency on campus.
Students, faculty and staff members are notified via home phone, cell phone, work phone, email and text message during emergencies thanks to this communication system.
Pepperdine Emergency Services and the Department of Public Safety (DPS) want to “allow the community to become familiar with the university evacuation procedures and become familiar with the audible and visual devices of the fire alarm,” Robert McKelvy, deputy director of Emergency Services, wrote in an email.
Students, faculty and staff members can only be contacted by the numbers and email addresses they individually provide on WaveNet under the “personal information: phone numbers” setting.
DPS asks that the Pepperdine community update all contact information on WaveNet as soon as possible.
Emergency Services scheduled these fire drills in order for the Pepperdine community to become “accustomed to the evacuation routes, understand the location of the evacuation staging areas and to practice speed and efficiency in a safe manner,” McKelvy wrote. “Some staging at Seaver College will require additional attention because of the size of the venues, the number of exits and number people evacuating the area.”
In addition to the effort DPS is putting toward the proper execution of these fire drills, the members of the Emergency Response Team and the members of the Residential Emergency Response Team have volunteered to assist DPS in coordinating the emergency evacuations taking place this week across campus.
“Each year, the fire alarm drills always offer valuable information to make improvements, which have resulted in changes in our staging plans, enhancements with the fire alarm systems and recommendations in our emergency procedures,” McKelvy wrote.
Emergency Services advises all students, faculty and staff members to be prepared in the event of an emergency.
“During an emergency is not the time to ask if you are prepared. Emergency preparedness is everyone’s responsibility. Those that are familiar with emergency plans and procedures quickly become empowered during a crisis. Those who are asking, ‘what should I do?’ quickly fall into the category of victim or needing rescue.”
