Flooded facilities, ripped-off roofs, power outages and crippled transportation systems — superstorm Sandy left some East Coast colleges and universities with big problems to overcome as they try to return to regular operations.

Here at UC Davis, emergency officials continue to urge — and help — campus units prepare now for carrying out essential functions in the face of such challenges, be they departmental emergencies or larger disasters.

Through a systemwide effort called UC Ready, units are being asked to create plans for how they would continue or resume critical functions. Since the program began in 2009, the emphasis has been on administrative units. Now the effort is broadening to academic units.

While UC Davis already has a comprehensive response plan to protect life, safety and property in an emergency, this initiative focuses on planning for quickly resuming or continuing essential operations — from keeping buildings secure, to teaching. And it provides a Web-based tool to serve as a guide.

Nick Crossley, manager of Emergency Management and Mission Continuity for UC Davis, said the departmental plans will provide the foundation for a campus continuity plan. “These plans are important because they will help us establish campuswide priorities for continuing operations,” he said.

According to campus policy, department heads are responsible for maintaining not only emergency and evacuation plans, but also business continuity plans.

The UC Office of the President’s goal is for each unit on all campuses to have UC Ready plans by December 2014.

Today, UC Davis has about 112 UC Ready plans completed or in progress, according to Andrea Tsatoke, mission continuity planner for the campus. She estimates that about 90 to 115 units still need to create plans.

And Tsatoke is here to help. She holds workshops to orient staff to the planning process and provides presentations and one-on-one assistance for departments.

Web-based planning tool

The UC Ready planning tool on the Web provides users with a framework for creating a plan and guides them with simple prompts to identify critical functions, key personnel, vital information, supplies and more. Users can upload documents that a department would need in an emergency.

Joan Zimmermann, director of administration in the School of Education, is coordinating planning for the professional school, which has about 450 students and more than 100 employees.

"You can be successful just by regularly committing even a brief amount of time to it," she said.

Zimmermann, who also serves as safety coordinator for the school, said the planning tool has enabled her to more easily collect existing information and break out certain sections to be drafted by staff with specific areas of responsibility or expertise, such as information technology and instructional support. And at the same time, its prompts have challenged assumptions and spurred departmental collaboration on larger questions regarding academic program and research requirements.

One of the scenarios the school is addressing is how, if the school is affected by flooding or an earthquake, it could continue to communicate with and provide instruction to its students — who take classes on campus and also travel to student teaching placements in area schools, kindergarten through 12th grade.

"Putting the time in up front will make it easier if we face a crisis," Zimmermann said. "We want a clear plan we can go to and have everything in one place so we can quickly act and reduce the amount of disruption for our faculty students and staff.."

To access the UC Ready program and get help with your planning, contact Tsatoke at (530) 752-3133 or altsatoke@ucdavis.edu.

Follow Dateline UC Davis on Twitter.