The final hours are ticking away as we approach Super Bowl XLVI. The NFL, the City of Indianapolis, the staff at Lucas Oil Stadium, they are all very visibly involved in making this weekend a success. It isn’t just the game itself, there’s the Super Bowl Village, aka the “Epicenter of Awesome”, the parties, a zip line, the celebrities—the sheer spectacle of the year’s finale for football is right here in the heart of the Hoosier state. And while we may not play as prominent a role as Madonna or Peyton Manning’s little brother, IU, and specifically IU Emergency Management and Continuity (IUEMC), are involved to ensure IU, the City of Indianapolis, and the State of Indiana are both regarded well and withstand the merry havoc of such a grand event.

Conventional wisdom is that the complexity of planning and managing the Super Bowl is on par with maybe four other events in America – a Presidential Inauguration, the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, and the Olympic Games. There are so many details to consider, so many things that could go wrong, so many potential problems, so many people with so many needs, and a lot of people play a part in making sure it goes smoothly.

Planning didn’t start when the Giants and the Patriots defeated the competition to earn their place in Super Bowl history. Not surprisingly, planning for all this Super Bowl frenzy, organizing thousands of volunteers working events, preparing for the 150,000-plus fans expected in Indianapolis just this weekend alone, began over two years ago.

When it was announced that Super Bowl XLVI would be held in Indianapolis, the city began to prepare, and so did IU. A working group of personnel at IUPUI began looking at the impact the event would have on the Indianapolis campus, just one mile away from the game arena itself, Lucas Oil Stadium. An IUPUI Executive Policy Group was set up to study how campus would be affected and to put in place policies that would guide faculty, staff and students throughout the span of the event.

A Unified Command group was created and given the responsibility for creating and implementing an Event Operations Plan. This plan is devised to prepare the campus for the large number of visitors to downtown and the accompanying increase in traffic. A Unified Command brings together representatives from all areas of the IUPUI campus involved in managing the event to ensure that everything runs as smoothly as possible.

The plan also ensures that in the event of an emergency, IU personnel are prepared to respond immediately and effectively. Diane Mack, the University Director for Emergency Management and Continuity, is the Liaison Officer for Unified Command, coordinating efforts with officials from other agencies and organizations involved with planning for an emergency everyone hopes will never happen. As she explains, “Our objectives in creating an Event Operation Plan are three-fold: we plan in order to protect lives, keep everything running smoothly, and to protect campus property. These priorities are always the same, no matter if it is planning for an event or an emergency.”

Mack has also been a member of the Recovery Subcommittee for the city, one of 17 under the Host Committee's Public Safety Committee. Local, state, and federal partners on the subcommittee have met for two years and are responsible for ensuring that processes are in place to handle the recovery after an incident, should one occur.

University Place Hotel at IUPUI has been home to New England Patriots players and their families for the entire week leading up to the Super Bowl. Four surface parking lots and two garages on campus are designated parking areas for Super Bowl XLVI fans for two weekends.

“We’ve had a campus committee in operation for almost nine months coordinating the activities to be hosted at the hotel,” says IUPUI Police Chief Paul Norris, who serves on the IUPUI Executive Policy group for Super Bowl XLVI. “The greatest challenge, in my opinion, was not getting the full details from the NFL until the teams were decided in the playoffs.”

The IUPUI Police Department is providing direct support and assistance to IUPUI Parking and Transportation Services and stationing uniformed officers at each of the parking locations dedicated to Super Bowl use. IUPUI Police also will have increased patrols in and around all areas of campus and has designated a liaison officer to maintain contact with other area law enforcement agencies in the city and surrounding communities.

Bob True, Deputy Chief of IUPUI Police is serving as Operations Chief, one of the emergency management positions established in the Unified Command. He says that in terms of campus impact, he’s worked other events that were more complicated for the campus.
“The Pan American Games during the 1980s probably were larger for us because we had so many venues on campus: track and field, softball, and swimming and diving, to name a few,” True says. “Plus we had a media center on campus. The Super Bowl is larger in numbers of people downtown, but we have just one team on campus, so that’s not so intensive.

“My biggest challenge is to coordinate activity and communications among various campus entities, including our partners at VA Hospital, IU Health and Wishard Hospital and local public safety,” True said.

On the emergency management side of an event, planning for the unexpected can be the last thing on anyone’s mind, says Carlos Garcia, the IUPUI Emergency Management and Continuity Director. “The IUPUI Police Department, Campus Facility Services (CFS), the University Place Hotel, other key partners on and off campus, and IUEMC have been working together to ensure the safety of the IUPUI community, the campus, and those visiting our campus to enjoy the festivities.”

Director Garcia is in charge of the IU Central Emergency Operations Center (EOC) this weekend, where IUEMC, IUPUI PD, CFS, and other partners are monitoring activity on campus and downtown as part of the Unified Command. Joe Romero, the Regional Director for IUEMC, and Jesse Campbell, the social media guru of IUEMC, are assisting the planning and monitoring efforts from the IU Central EOC.

Unified Command, through IUEMC, will provide alert, warning, and other notifications to appropriate personnel or the community as a whole should an emergency unfold. If all goes well, the effort will be an opportunity to see if IUEMC plans for an event work well enough to handle an emergency, as there is always room for improvement. And while IUEMC and our partners work through the fun, it is nice that there is a legitimate reason to put the game on one of the big screens in the EOC, just to make sure everything is going well.