Officials will be able to contact parents, faculty, staff and students if telecommunication systems are knocked out by a storm.

01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, July 18, 2006

BY JENNIFER D. JORDAN
Journal Staff Writer

With hurricane season here, local colleges are reviewing their emergency response plans, including how to evacuate students and maintain a communication system if power is lost.

After analyzing the way Tulane University responded to Hurricane Katrina, including launching a Web site three days after the campus was evacuated, the state's public and private colleges met with the private company that provides their Internet service to discuss an emergency plan.

The company, Ocean State Higher Education Development and Administration System, in North Kingstown, will provide the colleges access to an off-site Internet and telephone system based in Springfield, Mass. .

By the time classes start late next month, college presidents and other officials will be able to communicate with parents, faculty, staff and students if telecommunication systems are knocked out locally, said George Loftus, the company's executive director.

In addition to strengthening communication systems, colleges are reviewing other elements of their emergency management plans.

Most colleges in Rhode Island have generators and store food and water for emergencies, say college safety directors.

If students cannot get home safely, colleges designate a central building where hundreds of people can gather, such as a recreation center or a dormitory.

Campus-wide e-mails are sent out before a major storm, alerting students to the emergency plan and giving them instructions. Once the storm hits, security teams use portable radios and cell phones to communicate as they evacuate students or secure buildings.

Hurricane season is a special concern for coastal colleges, such as Salve Regina University in Newport, the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography at the Bay Campus in Narragansett, Roger Williams University in Bristol and Johnson & Wales' Harborside Campus in Providence.

"This is the time of year when I go around and review the plan at each of our four campuses, because all the plans are different," said Kevin Culley, URI's director of safety and risk management. At the Bay Campus, the emergency response team would evacuate the buildings closest to the water and make sure URI's research vessel, the Endeavor, is put out to sea, in the event of a major storm.

"It's always safer to be out to sea than up against a dock," Culley said.

At URI's main campus in Kingston, where thousands of students live, the priority is identifying students who would not be able to leave campus before a storm, Culley said.

Salve Regina University follows a multi-part storm plan developed by the National Weather Service, according to spokeswoman Kristine Hendrickson, who said a version of the plan is being updated for the university Web site in time for students returning for the fall semester.

Depending on where the hurricane is forming, students from nearby states such as New York and Connecticut may or may not be sent home, she said. Anyone remaining on campus would be directed to the Rogers Recreation Center, which can hold about 1,000 people, has generators and is close to food and water, Hendrickson said.

Johnson & Wales plans to evacuate students who live at the Harborside campus to hotels the university owns in Warwick and Seekonk using 40 university buses. The hotels could also accommodate students who live at the downtown Providence campus if the city's hurricane barrier is compromised, said Michael Quinn, director of campus safety and security.

"The hotels have large banquet halls, plenty of pillows and blankets and extra food supplies," Quinn said, but generators would have to be brought in to keep power running in the hotels.

jjordan@projo.com / (401) 277-7254