Text alert system found flawed in first university-wide test
By Jess Davis and Jeff Whitney
Edited by Eric Robbins
Posted April 24, 2008
A university-wide test of the University of South Carolina's emergency text-messaging system Wednesday failed to reach everyone on campus as quickly as administrators had hoped.
Sent around 3:30 p.m., the text message took an hour or more to reach many students, faculty and staff. It read, "Carolina ALERT: This is a TEST of the Carolina ALERT system. There is NOT an emergency. This is only a TEST."
Lizzie Wilson, a USC junior, got the text message about 30 minutes after it was sent.
"I really do feel safer," Wilson said. She thought the test of the system would make students think a real emergency was happening, and that it would cause a panic. But knowing the system works put her at ease.
Colleen Toman, a USC student and student officer with USC Police, didn't get the message. She said she thought she'd get notified sooner because she works with USCPD than through the new texting system, which worried her.
The alert system, started in August 2007, asked students, faculty and staff for cell phone numbers, and would notify them in case of a disaster.
Text messaging will be the first step the university takes in alerting the campus to an emergency, followed by e-mail and voicemail, said Kim South, University Technology Services spokeswoman.
But text messaging isn't fail-safe, and should be combined with other ways of telling people something's wrong, said Dave Bujak, emergency management coordinator at Florida State University, which started testing its text-alert system in January.
Sending such a large number of text messages can slow cell phone systems and clog cell towers, delaying the messages, he said.
"Everyone thinks text messaging is instantaneous, but it gets bogged down," he said.
Florida State University simultaneously sends text messages, e-mails and sets off sirens to alert the campus of emergency, and follows up by updating the Web site.
South said USC is in the process of installing outdoor sirens that would be tied to the emergency system and would broadcast the same message sent to the students, faculty and staff.
USC police are scheduled for training next week in operating the new alert system, South said. Right now the school's technology services department sends the messages, she said.
Previous tests on smaller groups were successful, including a November test of 2,000 to 3,000 freshmen, South said. She said most students got the text message less than a minute after it was sent.
Some pre-paid cell phone numbers didn't work, and students with their cell phones turned off obviously didn't get the message, but there were no major problems, South said.
"It's a great system that appears to be working well," said Russ McKinney, USC spokesman. "We're continuing to test it to make sure it's ready if and when we ever need it."
Text-messaging notifications have become more popular with colleges across the country in the wake of the Virginia Tech University shootings and other threats of campus violence. Clemson University started its text alert program in the fall, and has had some problems with messages bottlenecking at cell phone carriers, said William Daniels, Clemson's fire chief.
But any text alert system helps officials manage when disaster strikes, said Derrec Becker, public information coordinator for the state's Emergency Management Division.
"We appreciate when people go above and beyond the call of duty with these alert systems," Becker said. "When they take the lead with fast alerts systems it makes our job easier."
The University of Iowa, The University of Wisconsin-Madison and Virginia Tech, among many others, all have similar systems. Some schools use their notification systems for weather warnings, and some have tried to use the system for more casual messages.
At Pennsylvania State University, a text message alert system started in fall 2006. Called PSUTXT, the system was originally used to announce band dates and sports scores to the 80,000-plus students sprawled across 24 campuses.
Penn State's public information director, Lisa Powers, said now the system is used only for emergency purposes or telling students classes are delayed because of weather. The social text-messaging program ended because students don't want to be overloaded with text messages, but want to be quickly informed about important news that affects them, Powers said.
"What we want is students to see that we are sending them a text message and think ‘Oh, this means something,'" Powers said.
USC is experimenting with a text-messaging program with updates from clubs and student groups, now in a pilot phase with members of student government and other clubs, South said. If that response is positive, the program would be expanded to include all of the campus, she said.
"That would be great," Toman said.
USC student Brittany Kirk said she only wants text messages for emergencies, and would hate to get alerts all the time.
Elizabeth Scruggs, a freshman, said she would want to get a text message if it was about to thunderstorm or if there was a shooter on campus, but not for events on campus like free ice cream.
"It would get on my nerves," she said.
