TJP

What if Virginia Tech had a Good Emergency Response Plan?

Byron A.  Ellis

What if Virginia Tech administrators had a viable emergency response plan? Would the outcome be different?

First, lets look at how a household would react to a similar incident. If a normal household learned that a murder occurred in their basement or elsewhere in the house. Members of the household would check and notify other family members (head count/communication), call the authorities, make sure the perpetrator is not in the house, secure the premise, be on the look out, notify neighbors, and so on. In other words, they would ensure that they, and neighbors, are protected in the event that the perpetrator returns.

Now, lets look at the actions of Virginia Tech administrators. They inspected the crime scene and cordoned it off, detained a person of interest and held a meeting. However, apparently they failed to provide timely notification to students and staff, and to secure the premises.

Their justification for not securing the premises and providing their stakeholders with timely notification is that it was difficult to lockdown 100 or so buildings and that cell phones and emails were difficult communications methods. However, a strong police presence subsequent to the incident would have, in all likelihood, secured the campus. Additionally, the administration should have known that communication is the glue that binds efficient institutions and the leadership should have been aware that pre-planning is a key component of any emergency response plan.

Therefore, it does not appear that Virginia Tech administrators had a viable emergency response plan. How could they, when they had no effective way of communicating the incident with their customers (the students) and employees (the staff) or a plan to secure the campus?

Emergency preparedness ought not to be complex; it should rely on simple robust steps, including drills, to counter potential threats. For instance, institutions that have emergency response programs and execute emergency drills become aware of ineffective procedures. Thus, the purpose of drills is to assess the effectiveness of evacuating buildings, responding to injuries, communicating with stakeholders, and so on.

A well-executed emergency drill would have revealed before the incident the ineffectiveness of Virginia Tech communication systems. Thus, providing the administrators with the opportunity to implement viable solutions. Some proven communication systems are two-way radios, hard-wired or remote paging systems (loud speakers), and using the university police officers to physically drive to each building and notify occupants. 

So, the excuse that communication was difficult and complex and it was not possible to secure the campus appears hollow. Sadly, what appeared to be missing was forethought.