Emergency Operations Center (EOC)

In normal conditions, day-to-day emergency response and operations are conducted by departments and agencies that are dispersed throughout the Institute. In a large-scale emergency or disaster, the Institute will activate an Emergency Operations Center (EOC), from which centralized emergency management can be performed. An EOC facilitates an effective and efficient coordinated response by the Institute and representatives of other organizations who are involved in the emergency response and recovery efforts.

EOCs are activated for various reasons based on the needs of a jurisdiction, organization, or Incident Commander; the context of a threat; the anticipation of events; or in response to an incident.

Circumstances that might trigger MIT’s EOC activation:

• More than one jurisdiction, including MIT, becomes involved in an incident and/or the incident involves multiple agencies;
• The Incident Commander of an emergency at MIT indicates an incident could expand rapidly, involve cascading effects, or require additional resources;
• A similar incident in the past led to EOC activation;
• The EOC director, Chief of Police, or a senior administrator directs that the EOC be activated;
• An incident is imminent (e.g. hurricane warnings, elevated threat levels);
• Threshold events described in the Emergency Operations Plan occur; and/or
• Significant impacts to the MIT population are anticipated.

The EOC provides a central location for information and decision making, and allows for face-to-face coordination among personnel who must make emergency decisions. The EOC may be partially activated in order to monitor a situation, or fully activated if any of the above criteria are met.

Functions that may be performed in MIT’s EOC:

• Managing and coordinating disaster/emergency operations
• Receiving and disseminating warning information via MIT Alert and crisis communications throughout the emergency
• Developing emergency policies and procedures related to the incident at hand as well as plans for managing the incident over the next several hours/days
• Collecting intelligence from, and disseminating information to, the various EOC representatives and to city, state, federal, and other partner agencies
• Preparing intelligence summaries, situation reports, operational reports, and other reports
• Maintaining maps, display boards, and other disaster related information
• Continuing analysis of disaster/emergency information
• Coordinating operational and logistical support
• Maintaining contact and coordination with other local government EOCs
• Providing disaster/emergency information to the public and making official releases to the news media
• Managing interoperable communications
• Overseeing resource dispatching and tracking

If MIT’s EOC is activated, the MIT community will be informed of relevant information about the emergency via the MIT emergency information website.  All critical life safety information will be disseminated via MIT Alert.