Campus Safety hosted a campus evacuation drill moving students and faculty out of classrooms on Sept. 19 at 6:17 p.m.
Earlier in the day Campus Safety hosted a workshop in ED 170 to increase emergency preparedness. Department staff also handed out fliers about the drill at noon in Campus Center Mall.
Citrus College posted alerts about the drill Twitter and Facebook.
Nursing major Joseph Pimentel-Martinez said the evacuation was abrupt. He said his instructor told students to leave the building, but when they directions were “kinda vague.”
“So we kinda stopped over there by the Center for Innovation, but then she told us we had to go further out,” Pimentel-Martinez said. “So, I mean, that was pretty unclear.”
Instructional lab technician Jody Fehr asked tutors and students at the Writing Center to walk to the street beside Hayden Memorial Library. Other students waited in Campus Center Mall.
Fehr said staff were trained to deal with the emergency drill with a powerpoint that included information about the the evacuation area.
“It’s usually sent on the same day or the day before,” Fehr said.
Every campus building has an emergency information officer. Every floor of the building has a lead person and an alternate to guide building occupants to safety. Students, faculty and staff receive alerts several ways.
“All the computers that were turned on, a screen comes on and says ‘Emergency alert,’” Fehr said. “It comes on the phone speakers too.”
A walkie talkie announcement lets emergency information officers know when everyone can return to their buildings.
Social service major Alisha Vonlewis was in a campus parking lot when the drill happened.
Vonlewis got a voice mail saying it was safe to return, but didn’t receive an alert when the drill happened. She said maybe it’s because she wasn’t on campus.
“I still came to class to ensure that my teacher was either having class or canceled class,” Vonlewis said. “It’d be great if we could have a text, you know, because text is the way of society now. But I do appreciate the call.”
Biological sciences major Klenn Sabate was working int biology stockroom at Citrus during the drill.
“One of our lab techs were like, we gotta go now,” Sabate said. “We saw the computer screens, which is pretty cool. It’s actually working, so we know we’re not gonna die.”
Campus Safety uses the emergency alert system, which can be registered through the student Wingspan account, the Citrus Guardian app, and computer alert screens to notify campus of an emergency.
