Less than a half an hour after police at the U. of Louisville discovered that a woman was holding someone hostage at a university health center yesterday, officials sent a notification to students, professors, and staff members by e-mail, text message, and telephone.
It was one of the first times the university had used its text-messaging system, which it installed in October, and officials say that they learned at least one important lesson: make your message as crystal clear as possible.
The message read: “There is a student armed with a weapon at Student Health Services on Belknap Campus. Please avoid the area. THIS IS NOT A TEST”
Dennis K. Sullivan, assistant director of environmental health and safety at the university, said some people on the medical campus at first believed that the incident was taking place there. The medical campus, which also has a health center, is located a few miles away from the main campus, where the trouble occurred.
“In hindsight it should have read ‘Belknap campus health services center’” so that the location was clearer, said Mr. Sullivan.
Officials had prepared a variety of messages for various types of events, but none of those scripts fit the situation that unfolded yesterday. “The one event that does occur is the one that you don’t have an e-mail message scripted for,” he said. The university’s emergency-response procedures are published online.
The text-messaging system used by the campus — made by Rave Wireless — worked well, Mr. Sullivan said. Officials of the company said that messages were delivered to all 5,689 users registered for the service in just 64 seconds, and that 97 percent of the users had valid cellphone numbers in the system.
Mr. Sullivan said he would like to get more of the 27,000 eligible people on the campus to sign up for the alert system.
“We’ve had drawings for iPods, we’ve given away radios, we’ve done a lot of things to promote it,” he said. The incident has led about 500 more people to sign up for the system since yesterday’s alert was sent. “I’d be really satisfied if we get 20,000 people.” —Jeffrey R. Young
