New emergency head preparing UW for disaster

It's an office of one.

Hired last month as the director of the newly created Emergency Management Office, Steven Charvat is hoping to connect the University in its attempt to prepare for emergency disasters.

"An institution needs to pay attention to emergency preparedness," said Sandra Lier, associate vice president of business services. "We needed consolidation, needed to be ready to access flow of direction and training by hiring someone with expertise."

Because of this need, Charvat was brought to Seattle from Washington D.C., where he worked as director of the Training, Exercises, Mitigation and Plans Division of the District of Columbia Emergency Management Agency.

In order to prepare the University for any natural or man-made disaster, Charvat is meeting with members of the administration to assess what needs to be done in the UW's departments. Soon, he hopes to begin training administrators and faculty for emergencies. He said the UW hasn't performed a major exercise in five years.

"It's just like a fire drill," he said. "You don't know what to do when the fire alarm goes off" unless you practice.

His method of addressing emergency is prevention, rather than reaction. He wants to prepare for and minimize disaster before it happens. Programs focusing on earthquake, fire and terrorism prevention are most applicable to the UW, he said.

Lier agreed, saying the University has already implemented an emergency operation center, emergency phones and an emergency response team in the facilities department.

"One of the things we're facing is preparedness for earthquake training," said Lier. "Urban fire, or fire in buildings, [have also been an issue] in the past few years."

With a $158,000 annual budget, Charvat hopes his work will successfully implement preventative strategies that address these issues.

"The University is like a small city," said Charvat. "Just like King County and Redmond, we need to coordinate our efforts."

Charvat plans to link the University to other emergency contacts in Seattle and King County. These attempts at emergency disaster preparedness are part of a pilot project associated with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, now part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which allotted the UW $150,000 in federal grants in 2000, according to Lier.

Named a Disaster Resistant University within the Disaster Resistant University Program, the UW, along with four other universities, is required to identify vulnerabilities, make plans to address these vulnerabilities and share them with other academic institutions.

"We're acting as a test bed," said Charvat. "We're light years ahead of other schools because we're talking and thinking about this ... but we could be better."

In addressing these vulnerabilities, an Emergency Management Advisory Committee has been established. According to Charvat, representatives from the UW's departments are discussing increasing training opportunities for administration and faculty and implementing drills.

Charvat hopes emergency disaster prevention issues will be adopted by all aspects of the University.

"It's a long process," he said. "We're beginning to change the way we do business."