Make a Plan
Students, faculty, and staff should plan for the unexpected by creating personal emergency plans. It is a good idea to talk with your parents and family members about what to do in the event of an emergency while at UNCG. Everyone should be prepared to put their personal preparedness plans into action if the need arises.
It is critical to make a personal preparedness plan well in advance of an emergency. Your plan should be developed with your family/friends and cover the following:
How will you communicate with each other?
- Can you recall important phone numbers without referencing your phone? Complete a contact card to carry regularly in a wallet, purse, or backpack. Do not rely on your phone’s contact list in case your phone’s battery is depleted. Include family, friends, doctor, childcare provider, and any other number you my need immediately following an emergency.
- Choose an out-of-area emergency contact person. Remember, if local phone lines are overloaded or out of service, it may be easier to text or call long-distance.
- Plan alternate means of communication (“I’ll get to ____’s home and stay there until I can reach you.”) or utilize social media in the event electronic communications are disrupted.
- Make sure your parents, family, friends, roommate(s) know your plan ahead of time.
- For plan templates, additional information, and helpful tips to assist creating your emergency plan, please visit ready.gov/plan.
How will you get to a safe place and where will that be?
- Determine how to evacuate the buildings you frequent. If there is a fire in a building, do you know two ways out? Where is your Assembly Area outside?
- Determine where you would go if you had to leave campus or your off-campus residence. Will you go to your hometown? Or to the home of a roommate or a nearby off-campus relative or friend?
- How will you plan to get to your off-campus destination? If your hometown is far from campus, how would you get home? Do you have a friend you can travel with? If you have a car, will you offer rides to others who live near your hometown or in that direction?
- What if your home is oversees? Staying with friends or relatives in another part of the country may be the best option, especially if travel abroad is restricted during a large-scale crisis.
- What cash and other resources do you need to keep on hand for emergency travel (helping to pay for gas, transportation, food, etc.)
- What is your back-up plan in the event you cannot travel in the time and manner you have planned?
What information will you share and where will you get emergency updates?
- Sign up for Spartan Alerts, download the Spartan Safe App, and learn how to Stay Informed with official UNCG communications.
- Sign up for local emergency alert notification services, which are often available through local governments and schools in a variety of formats.
- Complete a contact card to carry regularly in a wallet, purse, or backpack. Be sure the card identifies: who you are, any special health/diet/medical needs, and an emergency contact (a friend or relative, ideally one nearby and one a safe distance away) to notify and relay emergency news about you.
- Post emergency contact numbers in an easy-to-access location. Store your emergency contacts’ phone numbers in your cell phone under “I.C.E.” (In Case of Emergency). If you have children, also include the contact information for your childcare provider with your emergency contacts. Special I.C.E. phone applications also exist. If you are unconscious or unable to call, responders may look for this information on your cell phone.
- Share your plan with your emergency contacts. Know their plans too! Use the start of a new semester as a time to talk about your plan with your parents, family members, and emergency contacts.
What will you do in different situations?
- Know how to take action. Review emergency procedures for emergencies that may occur on campus. Understand the difference between having to evacuate and shelter in place and which scenarios require these actions.
- Discuss with your roommates, friends, and co-workers on campus on how to respond to various emergency scenarios. Maintain a culture of preparedness, whether you are in your dorm, classroom, dining hall, or workplace.
- Print a copy of the emergency procedures poster to hang in your residence hall or office and review other emergency preparedness resources available.
- Use text messages, social media and email to connect with friends and family during emergencies.
- Mobile networks can become overwhelmed during emergencies, making it hard to make and get phone calls. Text messages require less bandwidth, which means they can be transmitted more reliably during situations when many people are trying to use their mobile phones at the same time.
- Social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter can also be an effective way to update family and friends during emergencies. Facebook’s Safety Check feature allows users to easily post a status update indicating that they are safe during a time of disaster.
- Have an emergency charging option for your phone and other mobile devices. Smartphones have become a vital tool to get emergency alerts and warnings so it’s important to make sure you can keep them powered up in an emergency.
- At home: Prior to severe weather make sure that all of your electronic devices are fully charged. If the power goes out save battery power by minimizing device use. Keep a back-up power source on hand.
- In your car: Keep a portable phone charger in your car at all times and consider purchasing a back-up power supply to keep in your car as well.
- Change the settings on your phone to low power mode or place it on airplane mode to conserve energy.
- Store important documents on a secure, password-protected drive or in the cloud.
- There are several apps for mobile devices that let you use your phone’s camera as a scanning device. This lets you capture electronic versions of important documents such as insurance policies, identification documents and medical records. Don’t forget to include your pet’s information.
- Back-up your computer to protect photos and other important electronic documents.
- Scan old photos to protect them from loss.
- Keep your contacts updated and synced across all of your channels, including phone, email and social media. This will make it easy to reach out to the right people quickly to get information and give updates. Consider creating a group listserv of your top contacts.
- Create a group chat via a texting app or a thread for family/friends/coworkers to communicate quickly during a disaster.