That is the highest number of messages yet sent for the once-per-semester drill. Most of them were addressed to Verizon and AT&Tcustomers.
Data collected to date suggest that more than 1,300 Verizon customers received messages in very short order. Anecdotally, Verizon customers reported receiving messages within 30 seconds to three minutes after HSU launched the text.
About 900 AT&T customers did not receive messages because the private AT&T network blocked them as spam. HSU officials are following up with the company to resolve the problem.
“HSU has been working with the cell phone vendors to ensure prompt delivery of these messages, and we did everything we could to launch them promptly,” said Josh Callahan, director of Central IT Systems and Services. “Ultimately, we can’t control or guarantee how individual cell companies handle the text messages we send them to transmit to their customers.”
The alert system is multi-dimensional to ensure as many members of the campus community as possible know how the system operates and are aware of the drill. More than 30 prominent red and black “Test Today” signs were on display to thousands of students, staff, faculty and visitors in and around the campus. KHSU 90.5 FM broadcasts, 826-INFO campus conditions recordings, the HSU Homepage, RSS feeds and Emergency Condition Web pages provided detail before, during and after test. The 826-INFO line was called dozens of times, and data are still being collected on the number of individuals who dialed.
The clock tower bells sounded for ten minutes, but were not heard in all outlying areas of the campus. Campus infrastructure is insufficient to launch an audible alert to all public spaces, and the University continues to pursue grant funding to restart the Emergency Public Address System project begun last year. A vendor had been selected and design work had been completed last spring when the state budget crisis forced HSU officials to reallocate funds earmarked for equipment and installation costs to other campus priorities.
The University encourages campus community members to sign up for free emergency RSS feeds, which can send a message to any desktop or laptop computer, and to many advanced cell phones like iPhones or Blackberries. Signup instructions for HSU Emergency Conditions RSS feeds are at http://www.humboldt.edu/~humboldt/emergency/subscribe. Comments about the September 24 drill can be emailed to response@humboldt.edu.