Shelter-in-Place Drill Set for December 6

Associate Vice President for Safety Demitria Kirby sent the following message to the Vermont campus community on November 21.

Dear Faculty, Staff, and Students,

As part of Middlebury’s commitment to emergency preparedness, we will be conducting a campuswide Shelter in Place Drill on Friday, December 6, from 1:50 to 2:05 p.m. This drill is intended to familiarize our community with response terminology and to practice procedures for immediately seeking shelter to avoid a threat or hazard occurring outdoors. 

A Shelter in Place order could be used for a wide range of emergency scenarios where keeping our community members behind closed doors is the safest option. Examples of situations when this order may be appropriate include a weather-related emergency, hazardous material release, or an active safety threat occurring nearby. When a threat is deemed credible, Middlebury College will issue this order via our emergency notification system. Those who correctly enter their emergency contact information in our system will receive notifications simultaneously via email, text, and phone call. Emergency notifications issued from the College are identified as “Midd Alert.” 

How it Works    

The drill on December 6 will begin with a Midd Alert message that reads, “Midd Alert – Urgent - This is a Shelter in Place DRILL. Seek shelter in the nearest building away from windows. THIS IS A DRILL. Go to Middalert.net for more information.” 

• The text message will begin: “Midd Alert.” Texts will come from a 5-digit number. 
• The phone call will come from: 802-388-0409 
  
  • Please save this number to your phone as it may come up as spam otherwise. Please remember that if your phone is in Do Not Disturb mode, this notification may not come through. Most phones allow you to make rules or exceptions to your Do Not Disturb mode, which allows specific numbers to bypass. Please make sure you include this number on your bypass list. 
• Emails sent through Midd Alert will come from middlebury@getrave.com, noreply@ravemobilesafety.com, no-reply@ravewireless.com, or middlebury@getrave.com.

Once the Midd Alert notification is received, we ask that all members of our community make every effort to comply with the instructions provided in the alert. No live simulations, such as an active shooter, will be included in this drill. There will be no other alerts issued beyond what is outlined in this email. The goal is simply to practice sheltering in place and encourage productive discussions on emergency preparedness and response throughout our community. 

During the drill, there will be College officials wearing high-visibility vests in different areas of the campus. These individuals are there to observe our response and make any necessary recommendations should we ever have the need to shelter in place. 

Once the drill is complete, the College will issue a second Midd Alert message that will read, “Midd Alert - Urgent - ALL CLEAR - The Shelter in Place drill is complete. Please continue on with your day. The drill is complete. ALL CLEAR.” 

This signifies the end of the drill. We expect this drill to take about 15 minutes.   

Updating Your Information   

Please log into Banner Web (students) or Oracle HCM (faculty/staff) to confirm your contact information is correct. We can only send messages to the contact information listed in those systems. 

Instructions for Banner Web are as follows:   

• Log in to Banner Web
• Select: Personal Information 
• Select: Update Cell Phone  
  
  • Only enter numbers for the cell phone; do not use parentheses or dashes to separate numbers. The system will reconfigure the numbers into United States area codes and the phone number. If there is a college phone in your room or office, you should add this number in the Office or Landline number box.  

Instructions for updating information in Oracle HCM can be found here.  

If you do not receive a test message during the drill, please immediately reach out to the Department of Public Safety.  

What to do in an Actual Emergency 

In the event of an actual emergency, instructions provided through a Midd Alert will be dependent on the event and its location. MiddAlert.net will also be updated with detailed information as we receive it.   

When a shelter in place order is issued:  

• Remain calm and follow the instructions given in the Midd Alert notification. 
• If you are inside, stay there even if you do not normally work or reside in that building. 
• If you are outside, immediately seek cover in the nearest building. Do not wait until you see or smell the hazard to seek shelter. 
• For a threat involving a hazardous material, such as a chemical release, close all exterior windows and doors and stay away from them to the extent possible. If possible, turn off the heating, cooling, and ventilation systems. 
• For an active threat, such as an armed intruder, close and lock all exterior doors and windows. Barricade doors, especially if the door cannot be locked. Turn off all lights and silence your cell phones. Notifications on your phone could give away your location. Do not turn off your phone as that will be the primary way in which the College will communicate with you. 
• Do not leave until an “all clear” message is received through the Midd Alert system. 
• If you are off campus, follow the directions of local authorities. Do not return to campus, or to the area under a shelter in place order, until an “all clear” message has been received. 
• As with all emergencies, go to Midd Alert.net for updated information.  

For more information about our emergency response procedures: go to the Emergency Response website or type “go/er” from the Middlebury network. 

If you have any questions, please email Peter Brown, Emergency Management Coordinator. 

Thank you in advance for your cooperation,   

Demitria Kirby
Associate Vice President of Safety