SFA Home / Campus Safety

SFA Response to Hurricane Ike

Members of the Stephen F. Austin State University community weren’t resting easy after Hurricane Gustav blew harmlessly through East Texas on Sept. 2. Two more storms were lurking in the Atlantic. When Ike began threatening the Gulf Coast, SFA’s Emergency Operations Center was activated, and 24-hour operations began at the center on Friday, Sept. 12.

During the event, the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) was directed by Steve Westbrook, vice president for university affairs. He was assisted by Marc Cossich, chief of the university police department; Lee Brittain, director of the physical plant; Dr. Adam Peck, dean of student affairs; and Sam Smith, director of student services.

The essential functions of the EOC staff were to monitor the track and progress of the storm; finalize storm-related preparations; advise the president regarding the continuation, cessation and recovery of normal university operations; implement and activate emergency sheltering, as necessary; respond to resource requests from units engaged in storm response; communicate throughout the event with students, faculty, staff, parents and the public about the situation and the university’s response; coordinate response during the storm to reports of damage and outages that might impact safety; and coordinate the initial phase of the recovery effort, including facility assessment and debris removal.

Regular briefings with the entire response team were conducted at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. during the days of operation. The EOC participated in statewide emergency management conference calls to maintain awareness of the state’s response effort and how it might impact SFA and/or our students and employees.

The Storm

After reviewing weather forecasts, the decision was made at noon Thursday to cancel SFA classes beginning at noon Friday. The Early Childhood Lab and the University Charter School announced that those facilities would close at 3 p.m. Friday. All weekend athletic events were canceled, as were all scheduled testing services.

At 10:20 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 13, winds reached a velocity that caused trees to fall and limbs to break. Students were advised through a Web/e-mail alert to remain indoors until approximately 6 p.m. At 1:15 p.m., the University Woods Apartments and several off-campus sites did not have electrical power. Oncor restored power for University Woods residents six days after the storm.

Resident students who planned to stay on campus during the storm were asked to register at the front desk of their residence halls on Friday afternoon. Almost 70 percent of resident students remained on campus during the weekend. To reduce the distance students had to travel during inclement weather on Saturday, food service was offered at the East College Cafeteria, in addition to the Student Center Cafeteria. During Saturday morning breakfast hours, students were allowed to prepare sandwiches and other food items to take back to the residence halls in case the weather made it too dangerous to be outside later in the day.

Shelter was offered during the storm to students, faculty and staff at the Norton HPE Complex. More than 15 SFA employees took shelter on campus. The Student Center parking garage was open and made available to students, faculty and staff at no charge. While structural damage on the campus was limited, many trees across campus were either damaged or completely destroyed.

Communication

During the event, the Emergency Operations Center issued 15 situational updates to students, faculty, staff and the public. These updates were communicated via three of our four emergency communication methods. The outdoor sirens were not used; however, they were ready for use in the event of a tornado warning as Ike passed through East Texas.

Alert System Summary by Component:
Mass E-mail: 15 situational updates provided in 202,980 individual e-mails

Web site Alert Page: 15 situational updates posted on Web, viewed 58,725 times by 16,177 unique users averaging 3.6 views per user. This single page contained all alerts in sequential order, so all information was available at a glance.

Active Alerts: 4 critical updates were delivered on the active alert system to 4,828 registered users on 6,901 registered devices (average is 1.4 devices per user). The system was limited to critical information only:

(Students responded to requests to register for campus alerts prior to Hurricane Gustav. On Aug. 13, we had 1,609 registered users; as of Sept. 22, that number has increased to 5,015.)

The EOC was in operation continually during the storm for 87.5 hours, and total operational hours were 100.5.

The EOC Call Center was operational around the clock from noon Thursday, Sept. 11, through 7 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 16, for a total of 115 hours. There were 10 phones, and 1,484 calls were answered. The busiest day was Sunday, Sept. 14, but the busiest hour was from noon to 1 p.m. Monday, Sept. 15.

A total of 3,510 working hours were devoted to dealing with Hurricane Ike, including:

Hosting Student Evacuees

The president of Lamar University requested housing for approximately 250 student evacuees beginning Thursday afternoon. While these students were transported to campus by bus, other Lamar students followed in their personal automobiles, and ultimately 417 students were housed in SFA’s Lucille Norton HPE complex. Health professionals and counselors were available to evacuees. By Monday, many of the students had made alternate arrangements for housing. The remaining students were relocated to the Student Recreation Center gymnasium so that SFA classes could resume on Tuesday and utilize instructional space in the HPE complex. On Wednesday, the Lamar students departed Nacogdoches.

The Lumberjack Spirit

SFA employees answered the call to keep the campus safe and ensure that it was operational when classes resumed after the storm. Many times, these employees were working while their family members were at home dealing with storm damage and/or power loss.

SFA students also rose to the occasion. In addition to the 96 SFA students who worked at the call center, another 320 students assisted at the shelter. More than 250 SFA students volunteered to help clean up the campus, and each of those students worked a five-hour shift, resulting in approximately 1,300 hours of service.

Food Service for Local Shelters

Almost 29,000 meals were prepared on the Stephen F. Austin State University campus by ARAMARK. More than 17,000 of these meals were served at Red Cross Shelters throughout the city. Lamar evacuees received 6,820 meals during their stay, and students residing at the University Woods apartments received 1,200 meals during the extended power outage they experienced.

Columbia Center

At the request of the Texas Natural Resources Information System, four Columbia Center System GIS analysts embedded in Dickinson at the Galveston County Emergency Operations Center to support search and rescue operations. The Columbia Center System, which also includes the University of Texas El Paso, Texas Tech University and Lamar University, provided remote geospatial data and analysis support.

The Columbia Regional Geospatial Service Center System was involved with supporting the Nacogdoches County and City of Nacogdoches Emergency Operations Centers with geospatial data before and during Hurricane Ike. In addition, the Columbia Center published regular updates of storm conditions through its Web site and supported mapping functions for post-event damage assessment with the Sheriff’s Office and the Nacogdoches Emergency Management Director’s office.

The storm tracking information was developed in collaboration with the National Weather Service Shreveport station. During the event, two important Web applications utilized for public safety and information purposes were launched. The applications were road blockage (accessible to the public) and gas availability (accessible to priority users), and they were updated on a regular basis.