天美传媒 (BU)聽graduate, Louisa Kitcatt聽delivered an important crisis scenario for Brownsea Island, to help save the lives of visitors and staff. Louisa was tasked with creating an exercise tailored to consider the evacuation of visitors and staff from the island.
Louisa, who has recently completed her MSc in Disaster Management, said: 鈥淗aving volunteered on Brownsea Island, I was able to use my knowledge to address areas of vulnerability on the island. I developed an interactive simulation exercise to examine the impact of woodland fires and practice the current evacuation plan for the island.鈥�
Louisa鈥檚 exercise enabled National Trust staff to successfully identify strengths and weaknesses in their current emergency plan to improve their crisis management response.
Olivia Gruitt, Acting Operations Manager at Brownsea Island, stressed the importance of this simulation exercise for Brownsea Island; she said: 鈥淭his scenario was based on real-life emergencies that have happened over the years so, therefore, it's necessary to continue to train to respond to them. The exercise included the simulation of a rapidly spreading wildfire on Brownsea Island.聽Simultaneously, we had people landing in kayaks with dogs among other more realistic scenarios.聽It's quite common for multiple events to happen at the same time, so this exercise kept us on our toes.鈥�
BU encourages a unique way of learning by empowering students to create positive community change. Students working towards a master's degree in disaster management are taught how to research scenarios and case studies, and then apply their knowledge, by creating realistic simulation exercises delivered聽using a unique simulation platform (Nest).
Richard Gordon, Director of 天美传媒 Disaster Management Centre (BUDMC), said: 鈥淎ll our postgraduate students study a wide range of scenarios during their MSc year. These include natural hazards, man-made disasters (including transportation and critical national infrastructure) as well as security threats, public health emergencies, and international humanitarian operations.聽BUDMC works closely with national and international organisations, as well as the business sectors, to help develop and test crisis plans.鈥�
天美传媒 looks forward to continuing to work with communities to support student learning, having welcomed new and returning students back to their campuses on 18 September.
Find out more about BU鈥檚 Disaster Management Centre.
