A disaster response plan to dea l with such an eventuality would have seemed surrea l a few months ago fora rural campus like that of Vi rg inia Tec h. The tragedy pushed many departments in the university intooverdrive in an effort to cope, Although the campus officially closed Monday afternoon for the remainderof the week, many un iversity person nel conti nued to work in spite of thei r shock and grief. Vi rgi nia <strong>Tech</strong>had to continue functioning as normal, although nothing was normal any more. The ca mpus, after all, islarger than many towns, wi th 2,600 acres and more than 100 buildings.In addition, April 16 res ulted in new pressures that no o ne could have foresee n. LaIN enfo rcement officersand state emergency personnel arrived in unprecedented numbers, Hundred s of news media representativesconverged on campus, as did thousands of visitors. Tens of thousa nds of telephl ne ca lls began pouringin. Tens of thousands of e-mail messages, letters, and gifts of condolence started to arrive. Traffic onthe <strong>Virginia</strong> <strong>Tech</strong> website stressed the servers, jumping from around 1 million page views the week beforethe shootings to 7.9 million the week of April 16.Volunteers fro m the community and beyond arrived o n campus to help, providing food, answeringtelephones, opening mail and packages, and performing innumerable services that provided a ,;ourceof comfort to students and university personnel. Says Pres ident C harles W. Steger, "There were dozensof early responder groups providing invaluable ,;upport and assista nce. Hundreds of companies steppedLIp and donated sen'ices, equipment, people, food, whatever was needed. We continue to discover theseselfless ac ts and are only now in a positio n to publicly recognize and thank the thousands of people whocame to our aid,"<strong>Outreach</strong> NOW 10
The <strong>Virginia</strong> <strong>Tech</strong> police were the firstresponders, forced (0 deal with a violentcrime of unprecedented sca le o n auniversity cllnpus in a rural (Own whereviolent crime is rare."'J(/e knew we not only had a majo rtragedy to deal with, we also felt weneeded to give students and unive rsity person nel - a total of more eha n30,000 people - a renewed sense ofsecu rity and the confidence that theywould once again be sa fe on ca mpus,"savs <strong>Virginia</strong> <strong>Tech</strong> Police C hief Wende llFlinchum. "And we knew this wouldtake a lor of resources. This is an ongoingprocess."Police force memhers neve r hes itatedto do whatever was needed, Flinchumsays. "My swff clocked countiess hoursof overtime the first two weeks, sometimesworking aro und the clock. I neverheard a complaint, just offers to do more.'J(/henever someone needed help, eve nif it really wasn't our job, our officers,;tepped forward. I was really proud ofthem."_ "Our colleagues \vith the state police," E~Q;coroco(3Blacksburg po li ce, Montgomery CountySheriff's Office, and other area lawenforcement agencies who pitched in didlikewise. Their responsiveness gave us agood working relationshi p at a difficulttime," he adds.Unwelcome NewsProvost Mark McNamee was o n t.heroad to Hampton, Va., when he receivednotification of the first shaming in We~tAmbler Jo hnston Residence Hall. Heimmediately rerurned to Blacksburgand joined the policy group meeting inBurruss Hall, the university's primaryadministration bUilding, with Steger.As the scope of the tragedy becameapparent, the leadership group decidedto make th.e university', on-campushotel and conference center, The Innat <strong>Virginia</strong> <strong>Tech</strong> and Skelton C onferenceCenter, the place where familiescould ga ther and the adjacent HoltzmanAlumni Center the headquarters for thenews media, who were ra pidly convergingon Blacksburg.McNamee, Vi ce Provost for Academic<strong>Affairs</strong> David Ford, and Vice Provostfor <strong>Outreach</strong> and lnrernatjonal <strong>Affairs</strong>John Dooley went to the hotel complexto begin assisting families and friendswho had come together to await news ofloved ones.McNamee notes, "We hegan to mobilizesupport programs for the families, keepingpeople up to date, providing information.That's where the srate police wereinvo lved and were ve ry helpful."Crisis ResponseDean of Srudenrs Tom Brown andAssistant Director for Parent RelationsKim Lowe, who remained at the hotelcomplex throughollt the first week,joined the provost and vice provosts."Families began arriving who alreadyhad the n ews of their student's deathand others ca me who didn't know yet,"Brown recalls. "I wa s there as much aspossible, but was also going from meetingto meeting." Rick Sparks, assistant directorfor new sllIdenr orientation, rookleadership and set up a command centerin Brown's offic es . They were inundatedwith telephone calls and e-mail messagesinquiring about students, so many thatt.h ey could nor keep up."Thi, office beca me the student andparent info rmatio n line and the phonesliterall y rang off the hook until aftercommencement. We saw that o urnormal phone system - three lines withrollover ca pahilities - wouldn't to uch thevolume," Brown says . On Tuesday, theirtelephone number was transferred to aphone bank in the Corporate ResearchCenter, giving them 13 phone lines .The pace of work was incredible, hutunive rsity perso n nel stepped i 11 tofill gaps wherever they occurred. SaysBrown, " It was hour to hour, 'what'snext)' It wa s amazing ro me that the \·astmajority of people worked well with thdt.We JU St didn't have the luxury of knowin,g Tuesday at ):00 what we'd be do ingWednesday at 10:00, and people seemedto be able to flow with that."The other thing that did not cease toa md ze me was that everyone focused o nwhat the families of the deceased andinjured needed. So many people puttheir own needs on the back burner totake care of these folks. I d()i1't knowanybody who wasn't giving 200 percent.Everyone was willing to do whatever it<strong>Outreach</strong> NOW I 11
Change language