UALR says multiple alerts best way to warn of danger
Posted on Saturday, March 1, 2008
The thousands of emergency-alert phone calls and email messages that the University of Arkansas at Little Rock sent to students and staff after Wednesday’s shooting were effective — if they were received, campus officials said.
The new alert system’s first live test worked well despite glitches, the university said.
UALR Chancellor Joel E. Anderson said that Wednesday’s first messages were sent within 14 minutes of a 911 call — a rapid response in his opinion. However, some complained this week that they didn’t get a message or that messages were late.
“The anecdotal evidence from the standpoint of a lot of people, it worked well and quickly,” he said. “To others it did not. The systems were overloaded. One reason was because of the cell-phone calls that people began to make. Those are issues that we need to look at really carefully. We will look at the strengths and weaknesses and correct them.”
The university is exploring adding a text-message alert system and an intercom system, said Associate Vice Chancellor Cindy Milazzo. The university had sent a “request for information” to security companies before the shooting. A campus committee will evaluate the responses when they come in, she said.
No single system will work perfectly, Milazzo said, and the best approach is to have several methods of communicating.
Such a “layered” emergency alert system is the best way to get the word out during an emergency, UALR spokesman Joan Duffy said. However, even with several approaches, broadcasting a lot of messages at once can overwhelm any system.
“That’s a consequence of the technology,” Duffy said. “We have a pretty stout system here, but when you are talking 15, 000 [e-mail ] names and 3, 000 phone numbers and you are cramming it into one set of wires, you are going to have a traffic jam.”
UALR’s experience with its system is common, said Will Morehead of EnviroSafe, a North Carolina company that assists companies and governments with emergency response planning.
Colleges and universities across the nation are revamping emergency alert systems in response to shootings at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University. Many schools are adding layers of communications, including e-mail, phone calls and text messages on mobile devices, he said.
The best systems are tested and adjusted frequently by people who are adequately trained, he said. Beyond that, students and faculty also have to take responsibility. “The university cannot be completely responsible,” Morehead said. “These are adults who are allowed to live their life. Unless it’s a limited-access campus, it’s near impossible to always be able to control what happens to people. I hope we don’t lose sight of that.”
TESTING THE SYSTEM On Wednesday at UALR, the first telephone message was sent at 2: 29 p. m. to 2, 754 universityowned phones and some mobile and off-campus phones, Duffy said. The on-campus phones included offices, classrooms with phones and dorm rooms. The message couldn’t be delivered to 115 phones. That could be for several reasons, including a busy line or a voice-mail problem, she said.
The message said there was a shooting on campus near the tennis courts and University Theater, and warned people to stay away from the area. It gave a description of the suspects and their car.
The next message went out at 3: 32 p. m. to the same numbers. That time 251 messages didn’t go through. That message said someone was shot and taken to the hospital. It gave an updated description of the suspects and car and said the campus was “safe and secure with all operations back to normal.”
The final message was sent at 5: 40 p. m., with 206 messages undeliverable. That message was recorded by the chancellor. He expressed concern for the shooting victim and canceled evening classes.
Duffy said the system is being expanded to add more nonuniversity numbers, such as students’ off-campus home phone numbers or mobile phone numbers. Students are being encouraged to update an internal Internet information system with the number or numbers they want the system to use. That could include several personal numbers and parent phone numbers.
The university tested the system last week — before the shooting — for the first time. Duffy said a notice was sent out that the system would be tested but the university still got complaints from people who didn’t want to be on an automated message system.
Some people saw an “unavailable” caller identification on their phones and didn’t answer. Some picked up but hung up when they heard a recorded voice.
“People called and said, ‘get me off that list’ because they didn’t want the aggravation,” Duffy said. “That is something that is a little frustrating. It’s like the boy-cries-wolf situation.”
In addition to the phone messages Wednesday, the university posted updates on its Web site and sent e-mail alerts to all 13, 400 members of the campus community. While all students and staff are assigned a campusaffiliated account, not all use them or check them regularly, Duffy said.
The university can only do so much in an emergency situation, she said. Students and staff also have to take a personal responsibility to make sure their contact information is up-to-date and check messages frequently, she said.
NEW SYSTEMS COMING Distributing messages to thousands of university students and faculty simultaneously is a near-impossible task, as several Arkansas schools have discovered in the past year. That’s when several of the state’s largest campuses have installed or upgraded rapid-alert systems. University of Arkansas at Fayetteville officials have been working to establish an emergency alert text-messaging system since 2006. They expect to have it ready by this fall, said Steve Voorhies, manager of media relations. “It was a more complicated process than we thought it would be,” Voorhies said.
Once the system is running, it will have the capability of sending everyone who registers his cell phone number a text message, he said.
“The theory is that nearly everybody has a cell phone or is close to someone who has a cell phone,” he said.
Administrators will begin compiling cell-phone numbers from its 25, 000 students, faculty and staff members this fall, Voorhies said.
Verizon is installing the textmessaging system, which is expected to cost less than $ 50, 000, said Tysen Kendig, associate vice chancellor of university relations.
The university also has the capability of sending mass emails to the campus and uses sirens for severe-weather alerts, Voorhies said.
Events that prompted a series of security improvements included an Aug. 28, 2000, murder-suicide in which a UA graduate student shot and killed an associate professor and then killed himself, and the 9 / 11 terrorist attacks about a year later.
Arkansas State University in Jonesboro — where a shooting occurred in a parking lot Feb. 23, injuring a student — uses a text and e-mail emergency alert system that text messages anyone who has registered his cell phone number. It also sends messages to all university phones and university e-mail accounts, said Jim Chapman, chief of the university’s police department.
The system, which is tested quarterly, was established by the university’s Information Technology Services section last May and administrators began registering cell-phone numbers in the fall, Chapman said.
About 3, 000 phone numbers are registered. It was not clear Friday why more numbers were not registered for the campus ’ 11, 000 students.
Officials are also considering an intercom system or an electronic text board in each classroom as a backup to the text and e-mail messaging system, Chapman said.
“You really need some backup support for it to be as effective as you’d like it to be,” Chapman said.
ASU administrators are evaluating how it could improve its alert system. The university is also soliciting bids for a loudspeaker system, he said.
The April 16, 2007, shootings at Virginia Tech caused Arkansas State to move faster in establishing an alert system, Chapman said.
“Virginia Tech’s situation caused virtually every college in America to look at and rethink the worst-case scenarios,” he said. “That’s not to say we hadn’t looked at other systems prior to Virginia Tech as far as safety and security goes, but I think Virginia Tech really flipped the switch.”
The University of Central Arkansas in Conway uses a combination of text messages, e-mails and a telephone line to alert students, faculty and staff of emergencies.
Its Alert Express system, which was established about six months ago, sends voice and text messages to administrators’ cell phones. In addition, the university has the capability of mass e-mailing faculty, staff and students.
The Safe at UCA Info Line, which has been in place for a few weeks, can be reached at (501 ) 852-4636. It features a recorded message that can alert callers to any emergency or closures. More information on campus safety is available at www. ucapd. com, Bentley said.
Bentley and others are looking at adding a system that could send text messages to students’ cell phones as well as an indoor and outdoor loudspeaker system, he said.
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