Bill Mayfield showcases digital preparedness tools. (Photo by Cooper Crippen).Luke Richey - Staff Writerlrichey@uab.edu
September was National Preparedness Month, and UAB took part in the national grassroots PrepareAthon campaign to spread the word about personal emergency preparedness and the use of digitals tools during an emergency situation.
“So many people focus on the essentials during a disaster,” said Bill Mayfield, an emergency preparedness coordinator at UAB. “I need food. I need water. But, we haven’t focused on sources of information during a disaster or emergency. Why not improve your situational awareness in an impending disaster?”
Each week in September focused on a different preparedness topic. The first week of September covered winter weather safety, invoking images of 2014’s “Snowpocolypse,” in which a scant few inches of snow brought the city of Birmingham to a virtual halt.
The second week covered hurricane and tornado preparedness. Alabama received more EF5 strength tornadoes, the strongest intensity, than any other state since 1966, according to the Storm Prediction Center.
The third week dealt with long-term utility outages following an emergency, and the last week focused on digital tools for personal emergency awareness. Such tools include Alabama SAF-T-Net, which automatically gives weather conditions for anywhere in Alabama and shows any severe weather or tornado warnings in the area. The American Red Cross Suite is an all-inclusive digital tool that supplies personalized weather alerts and maps, shelter points and a flashlight, alarm and strobe light. The app also has a safety button that someone can use to notify their family members and friends on their safety.
“People need to make sure to have weather alerts. Also, some type of first aid or medical app.
These kinds of apps are good ones to have,” said Mayfield. “Alabama SAF-T-Net, FEMA app and the UAB apps.” Other apps are Disaster Alert, ReUnite and FEMA. Disaster Alert is an app that tracks disasters worldwide. ReUnite is an app that allows people to upload a family profile to the National Library of Medicine database to find a missing family member after an evacuation or disaster. Someone who might have found or saw a family member can contact by “matching” on the ReUnite database. The FEMA app alerts about disasters by text message, mobile alerts and call alerts.
UAB’s steps to increase awareness and planning in case of an emergency have been nationally recognized. On Wednesday, Sept. 30, UAB was recognized as a “StormReady” university by the National Weather Service. To be qualified as a StormReady university, the university must sustain a 24-hour warning point and emergency operations center. A university must also have multiple ways to obtain National Weather Service warnings, check on local weather conditions, perform community preparedness programs and have a formal emergency management plan that identifies flooding and treacherous weather.
“Our Leadership and Emergency Management Team and Occupation Health Team have been working over the last two years with partners from the National weather Service, FEMA, Jefferson County EMA [Emergency Management Agency] and others to achieve a status of readiness for an emergency like a severe storm of other national disaster,” said UAB President Ray Watts in a press conference. “We have on our campus each day over 40,000 students and employees working together, and in our clinics and hospitals we see over a million patients a year, who bring their families with them. So we know how important safety and security are.”
UAB was the eighth university in Alabama to receive the StormReady designation, and joins more than 175 certified universities nationwide.
