NC State tested its emergency text messaging capability last week. But what would happen in a real emergency?  How would the campus get the message?

“In a real emergency, several things are going to happen,” said David Rainer, associate vice chancellor for environmental health and public safety. “Obviously, the first thing that will happen is that we will respond to the situation. Depending on the severity of the situation, we may use all or only a few of our communications tools to get the word out.”

Rainer said that after responding to the emergency, the next step would be to assemble reliable information then communicate to the campus. In the most serious situations, the university would use all communications methods. In an isolated incident, the range of methods would be more limited.

“Multiple communications systems give us the best chance of getting the word to a critical mass of people on campus,” Rainer said. “So we have assembled several notifications methods and plans for how they would be used.”

Here’s a glossary of campus alert tools:

Text messaging: The university sends a message much like a text message that goes from one person to another. Currently about 12,000 students and employees are signed up to receive text alerts. Based on the first test of the system, it takes about 15 minutes to reach all 12,000. Strength — It’s a message that goes directly to the recipient. Weakness — The number of characters in a text are limited; 15 minutes is as fast as 12,000 text messages can be delivered and in a real emergency the system might be slowed by increased cell phone activity.

Home page message: The university uses two spaces on the home page for alerts. In a “major” emergency, the page would contain only emergency communications. In a minor emergency, the block near the center-right of the page would be utilized. Strength — Plenty of room to fully flesh out details of the incident as they become available. Weakness — It’s dependent on people being at their computers.

Broadcast email: A broadcast email goes to everyone who has a university email account. Strength — Could be a more thorough explanation of the situation than would be included in a text message. Weakness — Like text messaging, not as fast as one individual emailing another. It could take up to two hours to deliver emails to the roughly 40,000 people who have university email accounts.

Audible alerts: The university has added voice– and siren–enabled towers throughout campus. The towers are designed to broadcast a tone alert, sometimes followed by voice instructions on how to respond to the situation and an “all clear” signal. Strength — Audible tones reach campus pedestrians. Voice instructions provide an added level of benefit to the traditional tone alert when appropriate. Weakness — This system is not designed to reach persons inside buildings. The warnings may not be clearly heard. Tones and voice alerts should not be audible in off campus university property .

Emergency Building Contacts Listserv: Each building on campus has several emergency building contacts. In the event of emergency, these contacts could be alerted by an email message which they forward to their building occupants. Strength — Can provide relatively quick dissemination of emergency information to building occupants. Weakness — Although expected to be faster than a broadcast mailing, can be slow due to heavy traffic. Depends on availability of multiple building emergency contacts to receive the message and reaches only building residents.

Campus hotline: The university uses 513–8888 for a wide range of announcements, including adverse weather and emergency situations.  Strength — Easily updated.  Weakness — Could be overloaded by callers seeking information in an emergency.

Campus and external media: Radio station WKNC-FM (88.1), the Technician (www.technicianonline.com), Nubian Message (www.ncsu.edu/nubian) and campus cable as well as the Raleigh print and broadcast media likely would cover or include information about emergencies on campus.  Strength: Easily accessible.  Weakness — Might not be as accurate or up-to-date as sources maintained by the university.