A mandatory campus-wide emergency evacuation drill will take place Thursday at 11 a.m.
“Everyone who is on campus at 11 a.m. is expected to participate and the drill will last roughly 30 minutes,” said Vice President of Student Services Dr. Stephen Johnson.
The drill is done periodically as a college and was supposed to take place last fall, but was postponed because the drill conflicted with the schedule for final exams.
Promptly at 11 a.m. the fire alarm will go off college-wide.
When the alarm sounds, students and staff members need to evacuate the building and go to one of the nine designated assembly areas.
In every room on campus there is an emergency procedures poster that lists what to do in an emergency and the designated area to attend.
Some students do not know where the charts are located and are unaware of its significance.
“I don’t even pay attention to the charts. I don’t even know where they are,” said Donna Hernandez, undecided major.
“In each room on the campus you’ll find an emergency procedures poster, the big posters that have a lot of yellow on them, and the posters have on top the room you’re in and also where your assembly area is located,” stated Johnson.
When students and staff members arrive at their designated assembly area, area team leaders will wait for the building marshals to check in to notify them of any trapped students or hazardous spills that may occur in a real emergency.
“It’s important because if we train now in the instance of an actually emergency, people can recall what they did in a time that was calm and specified for training,” said Johnson.
He thinks this drill will be beneficial for students like Christopher Ocampo, liberal arts major, who said, “I think I’ll go to the parking lot or somewhere open.”
Johnson also believes it will benefit students like Jessica Huerta who have no idea what they might do in an emergency.
The undecided major stated, “I have no idea (what I would do). I think I would just go outside somewhere in the quad.”
To become immediately aware of when an emergency erupts on campus, Johnson suggests students sign-up for ALERTU.
ALERTU is a mass notification system that will be used in an emergency on Cerritos College campus.
A text will be sent through Cerritos College Campus Police. To sign up log onto the Cerritos College Web site and in the ABC index click on the Emergency text alerts link.
