When Ryerson realized that the Monday morning anthrax scare was a hoax, I immediately started thinking about what would happen if it was real.

Despite the situation, students say they feel quite safe being on campus

"Ryerson is about the safest place you can be besides home," Manan Parikh, a fourth-year business management student, said. "Occasionally, we'll have these scares, but how many times has there actually been anthrax?"

At about 6:30 am on Monday, someone slipped a letter-sized envelope containing a note and a mysterious powdery substance into an office in the admissions and enrollment area in Ryerson's Library Building. The area was closed off until police could establish what the substance was.




                                                      Adrian Ma/RyersOnline Staff

This was the second anthrax scare to hit the campus in the last two months. On Sept. 17, a Ryerson administrator received a note laced with pink powder. And a few weeks ago, a 16-year-old teen was stabbed on the outskirts of campus at the corner of Yonge and Gould Streets.

Heather Aonso, a first-year social work student, says she feels "perfectly safe" despite these events. But she has no idea what procedures are in place - or who is behind them - in the event of an emergency.

So it got me thinking: what are the protocols when an event like the  anthrax scare occurs?

Ryerson's Emergency Response Team consists of people in various positions who work together to coordinate a response in the event of an emergency, says Julia Lewis, the team's co-chief emergency officer.

The team's senior members include Lewis, Ian Hamilton, the director of campus planning, Linda Grayson, the vice-president of administration and finance, Lawrence Robinson, the manager of security services, Diane Kenyon of university advancement, and Bruce Piercey from public relations.

"Members are selected based on their education and position at the university," Lewis said. Hamilton -- an engineer -- acts as the team's chief utility officer; Robinson acts as the deputy emergency officer; Kenyon acts as the chief communications officer, Bruce Piercey acts as the deputy communications officer; and Grayson and Lewis, the chair of the Centre for Environmental Health, Safety and Security Management (CEHSM), share the role of chief emergency officer.

These members meet once a month to discuss the school's procedures. "We look at any incidents that occur and we review findings of debriefs," Lewis said. "We're constantly making sure our procedures are working well." The team also looks at what's happening on campus, including technology and ongoing developments that may affect procedures.

To test procedures the team sometimes holds a table-top exercise to simulate an actual emergency that occured and how people responded to it. "It's important to know how to conduct yourself as you would in a real situation," Lewis said. The simulation has non-participating observers watch the event and record how well participants fulfill their roles. It's usually administered by an expert in the field of the particular emergency. "They [the expert] give us information to knock us off track. It challenges us to work through the unexpected factors you encounter in a real emergency."

The team also tests procedures by going through the debriefs of incidents to review how it was handled.

Previous emergencies at Ryerson include fires, gas leaks, chemical spills and bomb threats, according to Lewis.

There are specific procedures for different types of emergencies such as fires, natural disasters, health threats and crime situations, she says.

According to Lewis, when a situation occurs a group of people will then do an immediate risk and threat assessment. From their findings, they decide what action will be taken next. "[The assessment] could involve a lot of people or it could involve one person," she said. "It depends on the circumstances [of the situation]."

Sometimes, they'll decide it's not an emergency situation. If it is, however, declared an emergency, the group conducting the assessment will decide what procedure should be implemented.

Numerous people across campus are trained in risk and threat assessment, Lewis says. The CEHSM trains community members, and numerous departments on campus train staff, faculty and students. The Ryerson Students' Union also provides training for students.

"It's a shared responsibility," Lewis said, referring to emergency preparedness on campus. "Community members - and students - have a responsibility in leaving the building in an orderly fashion. They have a responsbility to help others who are in need. Everyone helps in some degree."