PRESQUE ISLE – Approximately 70 people converged on the University of Maine at Presque Isle late last week to help the college celebrate its recent federal designation as a National Weather Service StormReady University.

During the event, campus officials also talked about the latest developments in their efforts to implement the program.

The Presque Isle college was the second campus in New England to receive the label, and the 21st campus in the nation.

Established nine years ago, StormReady is a nationwide program that helps communities better protect residents during severe weather, from tornadoes to tsunamis to winter storms. Program “communities” can include cities, towns, universities, American Indian nations, and government and private entities. The program helps equip the communities with the planning, communication and safety skills necessary to save lives and property before and during storm events. It also helps community leaders and emergency managers strengthen local safety and awareness programs.

“The university is proud to be the first campus in Maine to implement this lifesaving weather alert program,” UMPI President Don Zillman said in a written statement. It allows us to get out warnings about severe weather almost instantaneously to our entire campus so we will be prepared when severe weather arrives.

“We hope this serves as a catalyst for establishing a very important program in communities and campuses across the state,” he continued.

During last Thursday’s event, presentations were made to showcase the collaborative efforts that the National Weather Service office in Caribou and UMPI undertook to implement the program. Greg Daniels, UMPI’s security and safety coordinator, and Tony Sturey, warning coordination meteorologist from the NWS office in Caribou, worked with campus, weather and local emergency management officials to meet the StormReady requirements.

As part of becoming storm-ready, UMPI had to complete several tasks, such as establishing a 24-hour warning point and emergency operations center and creating a system that monitors weather conditions locally. The university also had to establish more than one way to receive severe weather warnings and forecasts and to alert the public.

As part of the program, campus officials installed NOAA weather radios in every building on campus and at the local police department. Points of contact were established to monitor the radios and get warnings out to others.

Warnings also will be disseminated to the campus community through e-mail, a computer dialogue pop-up box, voice mail and radio addresses.

In the coming weeks, UMPI plans to install large video monitors at six locations around campus to increase its capability to provide warnings to as many members of the campus community as possible. These video monitors will be capable of transmitting pertinent warning information minutes after it is received. This information also will be broadcast in residence halls on cable channel 8.

jlbdn@ainop.com

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