Satellite image of Hurricane Harvey from NOAA

Prioritized Risks for 2020

Jan 16, 2020, 08:13 AM by Emergency Planning

Risk assessment is part of the emergency planning process. Annually, a review is conducted of potential risks, the risks are prioritized based on threat posed and likeliness to occur, and that list is presented to UTMB's president for review and adoption. The 2020-2021 list is below:

  1. Weather
    • Hurricane Flooding
    • Hurricane Wind
    • Extreme Heat
    • Water Shortage / Outage
    • Lightning
  2. Utilities Outage / Gas Pipeline Risk
  3. Disease Outbreak (including Ebola or novel High Consequence Infectious Disease)
  4. Mass Casualty (e.g. Terrorism (Complex Coordinated Attacks) / Active Shooter / HF or other Chemical Mass Casualty Incident)
  5. Cyber-Threats
  6. Fire

Since hurricane flooding is our major risk, the majority of preparedness and mitigation efforts are directed at that risk.

  • UTMB conducts a minimum of two exercises a year to test our capability to respond to emergencies:
    • A mass casualty incident exercise
    • A community response partners exercise
  • For business occupancies or clinic sites that are not part of the community’s emergency response plan (the clinic is not able to receive disaster patients) – a minimum of one exercise is required
  • Clinic sites geographically separated from the Galveston Campus should conduct their own hazard vulnerability assessment (though groups of clinics in geographic proximity may aggregate HVAs as long as they share a similar risk profile.
  • Exercises at clinic sites should address their highest priority risks