To the Members of the Yale Community,

As you may know, following September 11, 2001 President Levin created a
task force that worked throughout that academic year to review and
strengthen Yale's emergency preparedness. A number of improvements were
undertaken, ranging from better security for certain facilities to
additional staff training and augmented communication channels within Yale
and between Yale and regional authorities. These improvements could be
important in any number of emergency situations - whether a local or
regional event such as a fire or hurricane or a national crisis.

One of the task force's projects was to develop the capacity to post
emergency notices at any time of the day or night on the University's home
page: www.yale.edu. Although we hope the occasion never arises for us to
activate yale.edu for this purpose, it is our intention to post notices
there if we confront a serious emergency. You may want to inform your
family (by forwarding this email or otherwise) of our plans to do so, with
the suggestion they bookmark the site. We also will continue to use mass
emails for communicating with the Yale community.

In the event of an emergency that eliminates internet access, we will
distribute paper notices the old-fashioned way to the Masters of the
Residential Colleges and the Deans of the Schools. Also, local television
station Channel 8 and AM radio station 960 WELI will broadcast special
announcements for us.

The recent announcement by the federal government raising the security
level to "orange" made this seem a prudent time to inform you of this
emergency protocol.

Sincerely,
Linda Koch Lorimer
Secretary of the University