Page 32 - College Planning & Management, April 2018

Safety & Security PREPARE AND BE AWARE
EMERGENCY!
Maintaining emergency communication systems inside and outside of buildings across campus is a matter of putting safety first.
BY MICHAEL FICKES
NOT LONG AGO, a train derailed along the perimeter of a four-year college in Texas. The train was pulling a number of tankers containing propane gas. The derail-
ment caused one of the tankers to leak. College officials used radio and television combined with text messages to cell phones to tell students, faculty, and staff to evacuate the campus.
While there was no way to tell how many people were on cam- pus at the time, it is probably accurate to say that many thousands of the school’s 20,000 commuter and residential students were present, along with a full quotient of faculty and administrators.
Emergencies happen. A few years ago, for example, at a university in the upper Midwest, a contractor was excavating the road leading into the campus. One of the workers hit a gas line. Drawing on pre-set emergency protocols, school officials quickly set up a command center and, relying primarily on text mes- sages, evacuated the campus.
In this day and age of active shooters and unexpected acci- dents, it is vital for college and university security and emergency personnel to be able to communicate effectively with the campus- wide audience at a moment’s notice.
Three emergency communications systems are available to college and university campuses today. All three can work inside as well as outside of buildings.
First, the public-address system can broadcast messages through speakers located inside buildings. Speakers can also be located outside of buildings so those approaching a building can be warned to stay away or to come inside, depending upon the nature of the emergency.
Second comes message boards. Campus officials can scroll emergency messages across these boards, which, again, can be located inside and outside of buildings.
Third, and perhaps most effective, is the ubiquitous modern communication: text messages. Today, virtually everyone carries a cell phone. “Cell phones also make it much easier to communicate emergency messages,” says Mike Halligan, a UL fire and life safety consultant for corporate and educational clients.
Calling All Those Cell Phones in an Emergency
Public address speakers and scrolling boards make it easy to send out a mass notification message, but such messages, while
32 COLLEGE PLANNING & MANAGEMENT / APRIL 2018
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