LSU and Louisiana officials began preparations Saturday at noon to monitor Tropical Storm Ernesto. Ernesto provided the first test run for campus hurricane preparation departments. The University and state have added offices to prepare and respond to potential hurricanes. Since Saturday, the downgraded storm’s projected path changed, pushing the storm away from Louisiana and toward Florida. Landfall is projected for south Florida early Wednesday morning as the storm continues to move east. “We put everyone on alert that the possibility of an evacuation could occur,” said LSUPD Chief of Police and Director of LSU’s Emergency Operation Center Ricky Adams. “Fortunately at this point, it doesn’t look like it will come here.” Adams said his 20-person EOC crew, which can respond 24 hours a day to orchestrate communication and response during crisis, will remain on alert until Thursday as Ernesto heads for the Florida coast. The University’s EOC was alerted by the state EOC, an office run by the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness in Baton Rouge. Like the University’s EOC, the GOHSEP increased its level of activation to “level three,” which requires the GOHSEP to staff the EOC 24 hours a day with agency employees and emergency managers from multiple state agencies. The group is called the Crisis Action Team. The Pre-Storm Evacuation and Transportation Branch staff is added to the GOHSEP. During an emergency it includes numerous state agencies including the Louisiana National Guard, Department of Health and Hospitals, Agriculture, Transportation and State Police. Most parishes have a EOC where local leaders and safety experts can properly coordinate relief efforts in case of an emergency, such as food, medical supplies, medical staff, communication, street closures, building closures and communication with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. According to Mark Smith, public information officer for the GOHSEP, the Crisis Action Team will continue to monitor Ernesto’s activity through today. “[The Crisis Action Team] came in on Saturday and got everything ready to go,” Smith said. “Right now we rather stay on the side of caution because Louisiana’s infrastructure is not ready for a mass evacuation.” For the University, Ernesto is the first true test for the new EOC. Over the summer the LSU administration put the final touches on its first permanent EOC, which was originally established during Hurricane Katrina. The facility is located in the Department of Public Safety building, where it houses approximately 20 computers, fax machines, printers, computer servers, tables and chairs, TV screens, a remodeled LSUPD training room, a server room and a generator. According to Chancellor Sean O’Keefe, all the necessary resources for a response are located on campus so that no time is wasted on deciding how to act. If any potential crisis unfolds, the EOC is designed to add consistency and organization to response activities, support, logistics, transportation and information “The EOC was an invaluable coordination function for all the University activities during the Katrina/Rita response phase and the many weeks that followed,” O’Keefe said. “We organized this function as a means to communicate, provide direction, share information and make decisions on a regular basis, several times a day. During the crisis phase, it provided a forum to accomplish these tasks.”