The University of Central Oklahoma is a self-contained community with housing, food service, performance and recreational space, small business operations and academic spaces.

As the second largest public employer in Edmond, the university has a concentrated value because of the public investment of Edmond, Oklahoma City and Central Oklahoma. UCO has an estimated annual economic impact on Edmond of $235 million and an estimated impact on Oklahoma County of $275 million.

Manmade and natural disasters threaten UCO every year. The most recent deadliest tornado hit Oklahoma City in May 1999 with more than 40 lives lost. Tornadoes are the most often occurring destructive hazard the University faces, along with ice storms, floods, high winds, fire and a hazardous materials explosion due to the nearby railroad or interstate highway system.

Since 1993, the National Climate Data Center listed 148 snow and ice events within Oklahoma, causing nearly $400 million in damage .

Beyond damage and loss of life, the residual effects of disasters include inaccessible roads, psychological effects and a financial strain on already tight educational budgets, along with reduced enrollment and the end of the educational process for some students and faculty. With approximately 30 percent of the student population living in Edmond, traffic and street access are critical issues in a disaster.

A mitigation plan is crucial for the university and the community as a whole. This will prevent further loss due to a disaster and will reduce UCO’s vulnerability, and also the community’s vulnerability, to disaster.

To prepare UCO for a disaster (such as a tornado), a mitigation effort or project within the plan may include additional storm shelters being developed on the Campus.

Also, loss to a fire is one of UCO’s key threats. Oklahoma law does require sprinkler systems in all new buildings but the code in effect when some of UCO’s older existing buildings were built is the code that governs that existing structure. Primarily, those codes do not require sprinklers in the older buildings, only alarms. A mitigation effort for fire could involve putting sprinklers in some of UCO’s older buildings.

But a more far-reaching plan which UCO is intent on developing under this grant process could include forming larger emergency response teams, developing mutual aid agreements, retrofitting older buildings, improving communications systems with the surrounding agencies, teaching preparedness seminars and planning for campus evacuations.

UCO, along with the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security/FEMA, is in the process of creating such a plan. This will enable UCO to seek up to $3 million in federal funding for each mitigation project that UCO can validate with its mitigation planning effort under this planning grant project.