November 28, 2008
Virginia Tech's Alert System Stumbles in False Alarm
A report of what sounded like gunshots prompted Virginia Tech to use its text-message emergency-alert system this month for the first time, but the system failed to deliver all the messages.
The sounds turned out to have come from nail-gun cartridges, which the campus police believe someone exploded manually by slamming a trash-bin lid on them.
But until officials determined the cause, the university police secured nearby buildings. The university also used a multipronged
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