Crisis Action Team holds preparedness exercise
Mississippi State’s Crisis Action Team held a tabletop exercise during its regular August meeting to drill the emergency response skills of top administrators and key decision makers during a practice hypothetical scenario and training session.
The university’s Crisis Action Team meets regularly to ensure that members are prepared to respond to a variety of potential threats to the campus community. The most common type of threats include inclement weather incidents, but the team trains for a wide variety of other potential emergency situations.
“Regular training and drills sharpen our university’s ability to respond decisively in times of threat or crisis,” said MSU Vice President for Student Affairs Regina Hyatt, who also serves as the university’s emergency operation center director.
She said tabletop exercises, such as the Aug. 25 hypothetical emergency calling for a campus evacuation, allow opportunities to ensure the team’s processes and policies are working as intended. She noted that it is important for team members to spend time working with one another, learning strengths and opportunities, so they can operate well as a team in actual times of crisis.
“The adage ‘practice makes perfect’ is certainly applicable to our work as a Crisis Action Team. We hope to never have to use these procedures, yet we need to ensure that in times of real crisis they can be deployed effectively,” Hyatt said.
Brent Crocker, named MSU emergency manager in early 2017, facilitated the exercise.
Crocker said the MSU community can access emergency guidelines at www.ready.msstate.edu or www.emergency.msstate.edu.
MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.
Allison Matthews | Public Affairs
