Ask a CASP: Ana Alvarez

Ana Alvarez, CPA, CASP, is the Executive Director of Auxiliary Services for the University of Miami.

What did the auxiliary services department at the University of Miami do to prepare ahead of Hurricane Irma?

The key to preparation in the case of a storm or any other adverse or severe weather event is advance planning. Here at the University of Miami, continuity planning helps us become prepared to continue or rapidly resume operations when faced with an adverse event or disaster. Annually, Auxiliary Services works closely with our dining services business partner, Chartwells, to review and update our emergency feeding plans to ensure we are always prepared in advance of the commencement of hurricane season, starting June 1. This includes securing our standing orders for water and non-perishable meals (MREs), generator agreements for possible loss of power, along with confirming essential personnel who have been pre-identified to work through and/or post storm, as needed.

As soon as the Office of Emergency Management (prepare.miami.edu) team activates our Emergency Operations Center (EOC), Auxiliary Services begins to actively collaborate with the team (made up of multiple campus partners) to make critical decisions that impact dining hours of operation. We implement a phased approach when beginning to plan for retail dining closures, the resident dining ‘last meal,' and distribution of non-perishable meals (MREs). This is very much an interactive process that also depends on campus evacuation decisions. In the case of Hurricane Irma, the University made a decision to evacuate students with classes being cancelled Wednesday, September 6th at 5 p.m. With the goal of getting students safely off campus, a local shelter was secured for those remaining students unable to return to their homes (primarily international students). Auxiliary Services’ goal was to serve its last meal in resident dining on Friday, in this case lunch, before the students were relocated to the shelter Friday afternoon.

In addition, we worked quickly to secure our water and non-perishable supplies delivery to the shelter. This is what ensures students have access to meals, snacks and water to get them through the storm. Over 800 pre-made sandwiches and salads, 3,600 MREs and 5,000 bottles of water were delivered for students to ride out the storm Friday afternoon through Monday morning.

What did you do after the storm made landfall to support students as classes continued?

As we patiently awaited the passing of the storm, the EOC carefully monitored and focused on our post-storm recovery plan. University key officials carefully and expeditiously completed the campus assessment, which resulted in our ability to return sheltered students to dine for lunch on Tuesday, September 12th and begin the process of providing meals to essential University personnel from areas like Facilities, Housing & Residential Life and Emergency Management in support of the campus recovery effort. Over the course of the next seven days, essential personnel ensured restoration of power, debris removal (over four million pounds of landscape debris) and campus safety allowing faculty and staff to return on Wednesday, September 20th, resident students on Thursday, September 21st and the resumption of classes on Monday, September 25th. Our campus Bookstore opened for business Wednesday and our resident dining program was fully operational with both dining halls open to greet returning students on Thursday; while our retail dining opening was phased to full opening once classes resumed on the 25th.

During campus closure, our dining management team and dedicated associates prepared and served over 4,400 meals three times a day in our Hecht-Stanford Dining Hall which offered an air-conditioned break to the many essential personnel and contractors working full days in the +90 temps of Miami.

What advice would you give to others facing a campus emergency?

The best advice I can share is to plan in advance and have open dialogue with your campus and business partners to set expectations and review possible scenarios. It takes a team effort to coordinate resources and get the work done pre and post-storm so identifying your needs in advance is critical. It's also important to debrief post event and revisit plans for continuous improvement. As with every event, lessons are learned and while you hope you will not have to be faced with another disaster, you must be better prepared for the possibility of it.