Successful Test of Campus Emergency Notification System
After a thorough testing in February, UC Davis Alert, the new Campus emergency notification system, is set to proceed to full implementation. The new campus notification system was tested on February 27-28 and performed better than expected. Overall, the messages sent to four groups (16,000 total) through data and voice devices were almost all received within 15 minutes. This was a good thing – as the system was used during the following week to alert the campus to a serious situation.
On March 6, UC Davis Police and Fire Departments responded to a report of unknown chemicals in a dorm room at Tercero. The situation was brought under control quickly, but was reported locally, nationally and internationally over the next 12 hours.
“While most of the coverage was complimentary to the UC Davis response, there was some inaccurate information that was creating concern for our students, staff and faculty.” says Valerie Lucus, campus Emergency/Continuity Manager. The next morning, the new notification system was used to send an ‘all-clear’ message to all campus email addresses indicating that we were open for business. It also referred them to the UC Davis home page for additional information. Email messages were delivered to 53,000 accounts within 16 minutes, and 80% of those were within the first five minutes.
“This is what UC Davis Alert was designed to do,” says Valerie. “The campus needed accurate information. The media was communicating with the campus; we also needed to be communicating with the campus.” UC Davis Alert has the ability to send messages to all registered devices at once or in a predetermined order at specified intervals. The February test was designed to assess the performance of campus networks under the stress of sending large numbers of messages simultaneously using a variety of media, and to gather data on how the campus responds when confronted with various scenarios.
“We prepared for this exercise for months,” says Laine Keneller, IET Project Manager. “We knew that regardless of the results, the test would be a learning experience that would help us prepare for a real emergency.” The system was activated on schedule, the messages were sent and the communication infrastructure performed well, as did the staff responsible for campus emergency preparedness.
The next implementation phase is to create screens within the on-line directory that will facilitate entering personal contact information. A campus-wide information campaign will announce it to the campus. To learn more about the notification system and what to do if you ever receive an automated message, visit safetyservices.ucdavis.edu and click on www.-ucdavis.edu/help/safety.html.