4.0 EMERGENCY RESPONSE RESOURCES

4.1 On-Site Resources

The University of Tennessee has limited on-site capabilities to respond to an emergency incident.

Emergency response equipment at the University includes the items listed below.

  • Fire extinguishers, which are located throughout the facilities
  • Water hydrants and standpipe connections
  • Police officers to assist with traffic control, crowd control and other appropriate tasks
  • KAT buses that are on the campus when an emergency arises
  • Assorted spill control and response equipment maintained in individual laboratories
  • Larger spill response kits (which contain a bag of absorbent, spill pads, spill socks, gloves and garbage bags) are located at strategic locations on the Ag Campus.

4.2 Off-Site Resources

When a major emergency occurs, the University of Tennessee must depend upon the resources of the City of Knoxville and Knox County emergency agencies. These agencies have numerous resources of various types at their disposal. Involvement of outside agencies will initially be coordinated by UT Police and/or the UTIA Safety Office. The University of Tennessee Knoxville and Ag Campus have a Spill Prevention, Control & Countermeasures Plan to manage oil and hazardous substances, which includes a provision for emergency response for spill clean-up.

4.3 Communications Capabilities/Equipment

Telephones are located in almost all locations. The telephone system consists of private lines to each of the telephones. The exception is certain offices where secretaries have multi-line phones.

When an emergency arises, employees, students, and visitors must refrain from using standard telephones. Past experience has shown that the phone system becomes jammed when large numbers of calls are attempted at the same time. Unless restraint is exercised, use of the phone system for emergency communications will be nearly impossible. In an extended power outage, a battery backup system will provide power to the phones for approximately 36 hours.

Certain calls must be possible during an emergency situation. The following calls are to be permitted to or from the Agricultural Campus.

  • To UT Police from any phone on campus
  • To any phone from UT police
  • To and from all offices of the Deans, the Departments, the Director of Services, the Safety Officer, and CVM Hospital Operations.

UT Alert system provides information on emergencies and campus closures. The UT Alert system sends texts to cell phones and generate emails to the campus community that has registered to receive messages. For more information visit the UT Alert site.

Two-way radios are used by the following individuals.

  • UT Police
  • UT Physical Plant
  • CVM Hospital Operations

Blue emergency phones
In addition to the standard telephone system, there are emergency telephones on the Agriculture Campus, commonly referred to as “blue phones.” The blue phones are connected directly to the E911 dispatcher. Locations are listed on the maps site.

Emergency Telephone Trunk Transfer (Power Fail Phones): A small number of power fail
phones are strategically assigned to enable departments and personnel important to the emergency response and recovery effort an additional means to communicate. Additionally, these phones will serve a reverse 911 function through which automated emergency messages or information can be delivered to these departments and personnel for further dissemination to the wider campus community. Information on the power fail phones, locations and phone numbers is included in Appendix B “Power Fail Phones” (restricted access information; not for general distribution).