The University’s emergency planning committee is spending the last month prior to hurricane season revising Nicholls’ existing emergency procedures. Students, faculty and staff members will receive an electronic copy of the updated plan via E-mail prior to June 1, according to a memo from University President Stephen Hulbert. Mike Davis, Assistant Vice President for Administration, said the plan will address evacuation, communication, University security and recovery.
“Nicholls sent a team to McNeese to assist them in recovery after Hurricane Rita, and we learned a lot,” Davis said. “We hope to use our experiences in revising our plan.”
Eugene Dial, Vice President for Student Affairs and Enrollment Services, said Nicholls is committed to improving its communication with the campus when storms begin approaching the Gulf coast.
“In the past we tended to sit back and play the guessing game (over whether we should cancel classes or not),” Dial said. “We were more worried about unnecessarily canceling class days. However, we have seen that the power and fury of these storms are much more developed than we have seen in past.”
Dial said Nicholls is taking the position that it would rather cancel classes than open the University and risk having people trapped in danger’s way.
Nicholls’ revised plans also include accommodations so that the University’s Web site can be accessed and updated even if the campus is without Internet access. Howell said there was no access to the Nicholls Web site for almost a week after Hurricane Katrina. Even after Nicholls regained electricity, the campus’ Internet connection ran through New Orleans and had to be rerouted.
Nicholls has purchased space at the Technology Center in Baton Rouge that will allow the University to activate its emergency Web site when the campus’ network is hindered. Dial said the emergency Web site is www.web-br.nicholls.edu; however, anyone trying to access the homepage when the network is down will automatically be rerouted to this site.
University staff will be able to update information on the Web site from remote locations, and E-mail access will also be available. Larry Howell, associate provost, said this backup system will be in place prior to hurricane season. Howell said Nicholls will pay about $750 per month to rent space to run this emergency site.
In the next couple of years, Nicholls hopes to expand to a high-speed bandwidth at the Technology Center and back up the entire campus network, including academic records, which would also allow the University to maintain its daily computer functions from a remote site.
“I think a lot of universities across the country are beginning to realize that there could be a disaster, such as a fire, that could destroy its computers and records,” Dial said. “You have to have data backed up.”
Nicholls’ central computer center is located in Peltier Hall, and the system does currently have a backup on the second floor of Ellender Memorial Library. Howell said the timetable for getting the network backed up in Baton Rouge will all depend on the cost and availability of the bandwidth, but he expects it to be complete in the next couple of years.
The emergency planning committee is also working on a crisis protocol plan that would address such potential disasters as bird flu, explosions and other natural disasters. Davis said he expects that plan to be completed by the beginning of September.
