The university community will test its Safety Alert System and participate in the Great California Shakeout on Thursday, Oct. 20 at 10:20 a.m.

Students, staff and faculty will receive a brief test message on their cell, home and office phones, as well as an email. The test also will include the Alertus Desktop notification system, which sends safety messages to university-owned computers equipped with Alertus Software. The Safety Alert System is tested every quarter.

As part of the Safety Alert test, the university will activate a new emergency notification broadcast capability via the campus phone system. A short announcement will simultaneously play through the speakerphones of all Cisco phones on campus.

Also at 10:20 a.m., the campus will participate in the Great California Shakeout. During the annual earthquake drill, students, staff and faculty across campus should drop, cover and hold on for one minute, as well as assess their quake readiness.

“The Great Shakeout event provides an opportunity to highlight earthquake safety and practice our response actions,” says Rufus Gant, interim executive director of Institutional Risk. “Thus I encourage everyone to join with millions across the nation who will be participating in this event!”

During an emergency situation involving campus safety, the Safety Alert System simultaneously sends out messages to phones, email, text/SMS and TTY/TDD devices. To ensure the receipt of Safety Alerts, the campus community is advised to update personal contact information on BroncoDirect. Make sure to enter your cell phone number under the phone type “Mobile” in order to receive critical text messages in an emergency.

The university’s first responders are trained and prepared, but every member of the campus community needs to know what to do in an earthquake. Learn more by visiting the Campus Safety website and reviewing the Emergency Procedures.

“As residents of Southern California, we live with the constant potential threat posed by earthquakes,” Gant says. “Given this reality, it is only prudent that we embrace the concept of earthquake preparedness.  This includes both personal preparation in advance, as well as the execution of universally recommended actions when an earthquake hits. Those actions begin with executing a ‘drop, cover, and hold’ maneuver to minimize the risk associated with falling objects.”

Prepare a disaster kit that contains the essentials: gloves, goggles, dust masks, a radio and flashlight, water and basic tools. It is recommended to have a kit in your office, dorm room, car and/or home.

To learn more about the Great California Shakeout, check out these preparedness videos.