TO: Campus Community
FR: Kendall Newman, Interim Risk and Safety Business Operations Manager
Tomorrow, April 18, 2023, Sonoma County residents will participate in our county’s largest earthquake drill. It’s called the ShakeOut. Earthquakes can happen anywhere you work, live, or travel, which is why everyone, everywhere should know how to protect themselves during an earthquake.
This ShakeOut drill is an opportunity to practice how to protect yourself during an earthquake. Federal, state, and emergency preparedness experts all agree that "Drop, Cover, and Hold On" is the appropriate action to reduce injury and death during an earthquake. Find out why Drop, Cover, and Hold On is the best response.
As part of the Sonoma County ShakeOut drill, Sonoma State University will conduct a test of our emergency notification system between 10:01 a.m. and 10:05 a.m. that will instruct students and employees to Drop, Cover, and Hold On to simulate response or, if practicing response is not practical, consider what you would do if there were an earthquake at that moment. We encourage faculty to include the brief drill during in-person classes, if possible. Practice dropping, covering, and holding on for 30 seconds. At the conclusion of the drill, employees will be sent another message from the emergency notification system requesting a response that notifies SSU leadership of their status in order to validate current methods of accounting for employees during an emergency.
Testing of our emergency notification system is conducted periodically. During this test exercise, a notification will be sent to the contact information provided in your MySSU or MyHR accounts. Notifications may also appear as a text message on subscribed mobile phone numbers and as emails sent to SSU email addresses. Additionally, employees with on-campus workstations or computers connected through VPN will receive a desktop notification on their computers. Further, all digital signage that is University-managed (such as LoboVision and main lobby televisions) will also display the alert, as part of a new project recently completed by the Division of Administration and Finance.
You can verify or update your contact information by logging into MySSU (students) and MyHR (employees). When entering your mobile phone number in MySSU or MyHR, please make sure to label it as a 'mobile phone' to ensure you receive text message alerts. Changes made by 10 p.m. tonight will be updated and included in tomorrow’s test. In lieu of including your mobile phone number, you may opt into the SSU emergency notification system by texting SSUALERTS to 67283. If by 10:15 a.m. on April 18, you do not receive a message and believe that you are subscribed, please contact emergency@sonoma.edu.
For more information about emergency management at SSU, please visit emergency.sonoma.edu. If you have any questions about this test, please contact the Office of Emergency Services at emergency@sonoma.edu.