Because Thursday’s test will be a drill, not an emergency, there will be no evacuation.
The new, multi-layered system involves visual, auditory and electronic messaging of the HSU community to alert as many people as possible that an emergency has occurred. The messaging directs them to seek further information from multiple sources, such as www.humboldt.edu/emergency, KHSU 90.5 FM or the campus conditions phone recording at 826-INFO.
The creation of the new system was prompted by the tragedy at Virginia Tech last April, where university officials had difficulty quickly notifying more than 20,000 students of the violence that had broken out on campus.
College and university officials across the nation are installing mass notification networks and Humboldt State is among the first campuses in the CSU system to create and publicly test a multi-layered setup.
“The two features that make HSU’s system special are the use of temporary colored signage and ringing the campus bells as universal alert signals,” said University Police Department Chief Tom Dewey, who is also the University’s emergency manager.
Instead of sounding an air-raid siren and risking panic, the University will ring the clock tower bells in a distinctive emergency pattern of different tones for several minutes at a time. The rings will not be an automatic signal to evacuate, but an auditory cue to the public to be cautious and alert, and to seek more information from the HSU website at www.humboldt.edu/emergency, the phone recording or KHSU 90.5 FM.
“The situation might be an overturned tanker truck on the freeway, and the directive might be to shelter in a building with doors and windows closed,” Chief Dewey said. “Or, the emergency might be the threat of a violent crime, prompting orders to close the campus and evacuate. Every situation will be different, but the common denominator will be the distinctive ringing of the bells.”
In forgoing a siren as an alert signal, HSU officials considered the importance of minimizing confusion with other systems, in particular the current efforts to establish a network of tsunami warning sirens along the north coast.
In addition to the bells, brief cellular text messages will be transmitted from the on-campus cellular tower to all HSU community members who have registered their cell phones with the emergency alert system. Active students, staff and faculty can register online via HSU’s web registration site. Regardless of whether a drill or an actual emergency occurs, University officials hope that text messaging will get the word out promptly to students who are off-campus and out of range of the bells.
Temporary “Test Today” signage will be placed in prominent locations around the campus on Thursday. The signs will be posted in the same locations that red “Campus Closed,” yellow “Classes Cancelled” or orange “Warning” signs would be placed in the event of a real emergency.
“The connection between the signage and the bells is crucial to our effort to educate the community,” Chief Dewey said. “Everyone on campus will see the signs on Thursday, and when they hear the bells, they should make the connection that there are places they should turn to immediately for information.”
Chief Dewey and Anna Kircher, HSU Director of Information Technology, urge everyone on campus to exercise the system during Thursday’s test by calling 826-INFO, going to www.humboldt.edu/emergency or tuning in to KHSU 90.5 FM
“The best way for us to gauge accurately the capacity of our 826-INFO phone line and HSU’s web server is to have hundreds of people all trying to access them at the same time on Thursday,” Kircher said. “Then we will be able to pinpoint any weaknesses and strengthen and increase the capacity of our technology.”
Just as it would in an emergency, the broadcasting team at KHSU 90.5 FM will be on the air Thursday with information about the drill and reminding listeners that KHSU will be a key source of information when an emergency occurs.
“This is a trial run,” Chief Dewey emphasized. “Some things will probably work very well and other components will need fine-tuning. But we have made substantial progress and we are proud of the capability we have built in just a few months.”
The University will improve the system on a regular basis and test it publicly each semester.
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