Video Highlights Volunteer Life Safety Response to UIT Earthquake Drill

Stanford’s University IT Community Emergency Response Team (UIT CERT) hosted its 17th annual drill on Oct. 15, 2019.

The drill was designed to provide UIT staff, along with campus and community partners, with practical experience to use in case of an emergency or natural disaster such as an earthquake. UIT CERT conducts this drill because the top priority of the university’s emergency plan is to “protect life safety," which would come before the restoration of critical infrastructure and systems.

Volunteers set up, deploy, and rescue

Led by Matthew Ricks, senior director of IT Facilities Management and Business Continuity Management, the UIT CERT recruited volunteers to serve in one of two roles: as an injured party or as a member of the response team. This year, 49 staff members from within and outside Stanford participated in its first-ever “after-hours” drill.

“It was great to see the teams collaborate to achieve the objectives of the drill,” Ricks said, “as many of the participants had just met each other for the first time at the beginning of the drill. This is how the community would need to come together in response to a regional emergency and to adapt to changing conditions.”

The drill scenario was a series of action-packed activities that took place on the historic campus in response to a 7.5-magnitude earthquake hitting the Hayward Fault. Activities included the set-up of stations for robust incident command and medical operations in Jordan Quad, and the deployment of teams to search for and rescue victims from damaged buildings, even well after daylight was gone.

View the 2019 drill summary, lessons learned, and additional images in this slide deck.