When Rickie Kinley's supervisor handed her a 4-inch-thick binder labeled "Emergency Planning," what came with it was an integral role in UC Davis' response to a large-scale emergency. "I freaked out," says the facilities analyst whose only experience with emergencies had been raising two children. But in the eight months since she was handed that black binder, Kinley has assembled the core of her planning and intelligence team, and it is working through a detailed agenda for defining, gathering, analyzing, storing, displaying and updating the vast array of information emergency responders and decision-makers may need. She's one of a few dozen staff members charged with implementing the campus Emergency Operations Plan that became official this week. The 23-page plan, found on the Web at http://planit.ucdavis.edu, outlines policies and procedures as well as an organizational structure for emergency planning and response. It marks neither the beginning nor the end of this group's work. Members of the Emergency Preparedness Policy Group and their teams, recruited from a variety of administrative departments, continue with that planning. It must address needs in an emergency from the most basic -- which vendors can supply large quantities of blankets, tents and even portable toilets -- to the more complex -- alternate communication systems. "In an emergency, one naturally thinks of the fire and police departments," says Campus Emergency Planner Ev Profita, who wrote the emergency operations plan and is helping guide its implementation. "But to support the front-line response, there's a need for so many other people whose day-to-day roles are not directly related to emergency services." Hazards anticipated UC Davis Chief of Police Calvin Handy, who chairs the emergency group, says comprehensive planning is critical if individuals from disparate departments at an institution the size of UC Davis are to work together effectively in a major emergency. "The planning, the information gathering, the inventorying of resources and the training -- all of it allows us to anticipate the hazards and their implications, communicate with each other and efficiently allocate our resources in an emergency," he says. Other recent progress in emergency preparedness includes: Ev Profita was appointed in July as the campus's first emergency planner. She had served on an interim basis since January 1997. About 96 percent of 218 campus departments have prepared departmental emergency plans including evacuation procedures. In May, the university completed a three-year training program for about 450 safety coordinators and alternates that included 13 sessions on topics ranging from drafting departmental emergency plans and contingency plans for animal safety to workplace violence and data preservation. The training of faculty members began last fall, and the Division of Biological Sciences was the first academic area to complete emergency preparedness training. Members of the Emergency Preparedness Policy Group and the teams participated in five days of emergency management training that included a half-day exercise in September. Campus executives responsible for policies and priorities will be trained this quarter. UC Davis has integrated its emergency planning with Davis, Yolo County and state emergency-management systems not only to be a good neighbor but also to maximize the resources available to the campus for training and emergency response. For example, Profita and police and fire representatives recently attended a U.S. Department of Defense course on terrorism involving chemical, biological and radioactive agents. The hazards most likely to affect UC Davis have been analyzed. Identified as occurring most frequently and likely to have the most severe impact are flooding, hazardous materials incidents and extreme weather. Fires, earthquakes, train derailments, acts of terrorism and any event causing multiple casualties occur less frequently but also would have a severe impact. Vice Chancellor for Administration Janet Hamilton, who is responsible for emergency planning and would chair the executive group during an emergency, says the emergency operations plan is an evolving document that should be integrated with departmental operations and planning. "One of the best ways to be prepared in an emergency," she says, "is to think about these things as you go about your day-to-day business." The next major element in the campus's emergency planning, Hamilton says, is to prepare to sustain or resume as quickly as possible key functions such as payroll and student registration. Profita is collaborating with the UC Office of the President to develop a model that all campuses in the system could use for business-continuity planning, and Hamilton hopes to outline UC Davis' approach by July. The campus's emergency structure, based on a model mandated by state law, incorporates staff from such diverse areas as the Planning and Budget Office, Environmental Health and Safety, Purchasing, Facilities Services, Transportation and Parking Services, Risk Management and Communication Resources. They are organized into 21 units with different functions. In turn, those units are grouped in four teams with responsibility for on-scene response operations, planning and intelligence, logistics and administrative services such as the documentation of expenses and personnel time. An emergency manager oversees the four teams as well as a safety monitor, a liaison to other agencies and a chief public information officer. An emergency director, to whom the emergency manager reports, has overall responsibility for emergency response and serves as liaison to seven campus executives who decide policy and set priorities. UC Davis has modified the state's standard plan to include an academic representative. During an emergency, faculty members will communicate their concerns about the preservation of research or access to offices and labs through that representative. "The effects of emergency response on faculty research might not be immediately obvious to the decision-makers," says Phil Tillman, campus veterinarian. "I'm the complaint department." The planning and intelligence team is seeking a second academic representative with expertise in either chemistry or engineering. Profita is exploring a Web-based program that will allow faculty members to identify in advance those resources of extraordinary importance such as animal subjects, plant materials and unique research or collections, in addition to chemicals and radioactive materials that could pose special hazards to emergency responders. She encourages faculty members to consult with her or their departmental safety coordinator to develop plans to help minimize the effect of an emergency on what can be a life's investment in research and special collections. Counting cars and making maps Meanwhile, others charged with implementing the UC Davis emergency operations plan continue working through their tasks and myriad associated details. For example, Cliff Contreras, the associate director of Transportation and Parking Services, will be identifying vehicles owned by campus departments so that during an emergency the vehicles could be drafted into service along with the 600 managed by Fleet Services. Tom Compton of Student Affairs, who chairs the logistics team, and Deborah Luthi of Human Resources and Risk Management are considering liability and other issues in order to make a recommendation regarding the use of volunteers or the temporary reassignment of employees to departments other than their own. Campus maps prepared by Eric Rainbolt of the Planning and Budget Office will identify buildings by six methods: commonly known names, the 12-character designation used by Facilities Services, an asset number assigned by accounting, a zone and building code used by the Fire Department, a street address that the Police Department will eventually adapt and a numbering system used by an outside agency to inspect animal facilities. "We all understand that none of us are emergency planners by trade," Kinley says, "but I think we're doing it in the right spirit. We don't have these furrowed eyebrows all the time. And we manage to have some fun." She points to the time she was reviewing sample checklists in the black binder and found "clean socks" itemized among those things that emergency team members should take with them when they assemble at an emergency management center. "I guess dirty socks have been a problem in some emergencies," Kinley laughs.