This week is National Hurricane Preparedness Week, and June 1 marks the beginning of the 2009 Hurricane season. To prepare for this, the University of Houston Department of Public Safety (UHDPS) will be testing the Mass Notification Siren System on Friday, May 29th, 2009 at 2:00 p.m. The siren will sound for 30 seconds.

Although we will have UHDPS staff monitoring at various locations across campus during the test of the system we would appreciate your input as well. Upon the completion of the testing you can go to www.uh.edu/police/siren_test.html to describe your experience with the Siren System.

The siren will be activated by UHDPS in the event of the following emergencies:

·         Severe weather conditions (Severe storms, tornado warning or other dangerous conditions)

·         Active shooter or other acts of terrorism

·         Major hazardous material incidents

In the event of an actual emergency, the PIER notification system will be used in concert with the siren system to disseminate further information to the U of H community. Only those persons that have current contact information in PeopleSoft will be able to receive these emergency messages. You can find instructions for updating your cell phone number, email address and other contact information at www.uh.edu/emergency.

The Texas Governor’s Division of Emergency Management has put together useful hurricane awareness materials that can be found on their website. For severe weather preparation in on-campus workplaces, the UHDPS Fire Marshal has put together a Severe Weather Response Planning Kit, which can be found at www.uh.edu/emergency.

You can also follow UHDPS on Twitter for regular updates of a non-emergency nature.

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