The Central Alert System needs send clear messages in a timely fashion
Dozens of students, faculty, alumni and community members woke up to phones ringing near 11 p.m. Monday.
The calls were from Central Alert to bring them an emergency message: That the Music Building was being evacuated because of a gas leak.
If Monday showed anything, it is that the Central Alert System is a flawed system that needs serious fixing — for several reasons.
Although the problem was identified as early as 5 p.m. — that a foul smell was in the air around campus — the system didn’t send anything out until 10:45 p.m., more than five hours later. Few, if any, students are in any of the buildings on campus after 10 p.m. Some people are asleep after a busy day of working and attending class.
A warning in the dead of night is the last thing anyone wants to wake up to, especially if it’s not life-threatening and does not need the immediate attention of those signed up to Central Alert. Even worse, many could not make out the garbled message they heard when they did pick up their phones.
The message told people to “evacuate this building,” but failed to identify which building. If this had been an extreme emergency, most people would be left in the dark since nothing was communicated. People could have stayed in the building and been harmed, or gotten worked up over nothing.
Later, another message was sent out, saying that the building was clear. Most people thought “clear” meant it was safe to go back into the building. But officials said clear only meant that no one was inside of the building, and that it was not okay to enter the building.
The university should be embarassed by how uncoordinated this process went. The Central Alert System needs to be more concise with its word choice and timing if it expects to help anyone. It also needs to make sense.
Either the system itself is faulty or the people operating it are not clear on what they need to do. The quickest solution to improving the Central Alert System is have a better plan in place for the next use.
If the emergency broadcast system continues to operate poorly, people are going to see it as an annoyance and eventually ignore it all together. The system will essentially turn into the boy who cried wolf.
Having this system is a good idea — if it works effectively. Sending text messages and phone calls is a convenient way of alerting students of on campus dangers, especially when they are away from school. It gives parents peace of mind, too.
But if it continues to operate like it did Monday, the university may be better off not having it.
