It sounds as though you are on the right track with the communications. One
word of caution is that many two way radios work on line of sight. In our case
even the 5watt Kenwood 2 way radios did not work well across our campus since
the university is located on the side of a mountain. They did not work well
when trying to communicate from the inside of the buildings either. We did not
buy them.
The campus police here use radios with repeaters so they can communicate across
campus and with the city fire department. The cell phones that supporting
departments have are extremely valuable during emergencies as they free up the
radio channels that fire and police departments are using. Pagers also work
well for contacting people, but having a phone by your side is a major
convenience. In addition, the cell phones are useful during normal business
hours and therefore are cost efficient.

Randy Shebby
Safety Manager
Lehigh University

"Michael J. Fox" wrote:

> At 01:35 PM 1/25/01 -0500, you wrote:
>
> >What kind of communication system(s) do you have in time of emergency?
> >For example, how does an institution's campus police or campus security
> >contact a department (Housekeeping or Maintenance) for assistance with a
> >flood, light outage, fire alarm system malfunction, elevator problem,
> >broken window, malfunctioning automatic door, lock problem, etc.
>
> Yale University has a 24 hr call center for Physical Plant operations which
> has two way radio communications with supervisors and physical plant
> personnel during normal business hours. Further, all physical plant
> personnel (excluding dining hall and custodial staff, just supervisors
> carry them) carry alpha numeric pagers for 24 hour response from home.
>
> Also, Yale University Police has a 24 hour dispatch which has two way radio
> communications with Officers for police operations. This is a business
> frequency. The University emergency number rings to them as do all of the
> campus "Emergency" phones. The university Police do carry Nextels for non
> emergency use.
>
> Last but not least, Yale University Security has a 24 hour dispatch for
> burglar and fire alarm monitoring. They are responsible for calling the
> fire department on all fire alarms and University Police on all burglar
> alarms. University Security Officers also do lock-outs for the entire
> University.
>
> >We at Ramapo College are looking at "Nextel" a cell phone --
> >walkie/talkie device and pager (I believe that's the level of options)
> >-- so that we can "marshall the troops" -- including senior
> >administrators, housing officials, etc., in time of crisis that would
> >warrant a quick response.
> We have also looked at going to Nextels for non emergency use, but since we
> have already invested heavily on our own radio systems, and the fact that
> for life safety we do not want to depend on the performance of equipment
> that we do not have control over, we haven't bought any.
>
> >How do you go about contacting people who can either fix the problem or
> >make a decision about it?
>
> We have a night time supervisor who makes these decisions and a call list
> of home phone numbers/pager numbers.
>
> >Who is contacted if you must make a statement to the media as a result
> >of the crisis?
> Our Department of Public Relations, Univerity Secretary, Fire Marshal, or
> Chief of Police.
>
> Michael Fox
> Dep. Fire Inspector
> Yale University
> Office of the Fire Marshal
> 314 Prospect Street
> New Haven, CT 06515
> voice: 203-432-9924
> fax: 203-432-8937
> email: [log in to unmask]