In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, Union, like most other colleges and universities, installed a new emergency alert system, which they test much more frequently than it can possibly require. This always produces a flurry of emails alerting us to the upcoming test, and then the test message itself (which is also read over loudspeakers across campus). The test message (which just showed up in my inbox) begins:
This is a test of Union’s Emergency Alert Notification System. In the event of a real emergency this email would provide relevant alert info[rmation]
I always want this to be followed by “As this is only a test, here’s some irrelevant trivia: The capital of Djibouti is Djibouti.”
I’d love to see an assessment of the cost per life saved of that emergency system.
We’ve recently had such a loudspeaker system installed on campus. I learned of its existence last month when it was used during an actual weather emergency: severe thunderstorms coming through the area, from a complex that had already spawned a tornado or two. Unfortunately, between the poor sound quality of the tannoy and the fact that I was inside a building at the time, I couldn’t understand either the emergency message or the all clear announcement that followed about an hour later. Neither could several other people who were in the building; apparently some people mistook it for a fire alarm and walked outside, which is the last thing you want in such a situation.
It makes sense to have such a system in places like Tornado Alley or earthquake country where life-threatening situations can arise with little or no warning. Outside of those areas it’s definitely more like security theater. But I’d say we are erring more on the side of not testing enough, if I found out about the system when it was used legitimately rather than via a test.
Imagine what a failure this will be when the message is a warning that a DDOS attack has overwhelmed their servers.
And, besides, in a real emergency, the moment the authorities — thugs with guns and radios — get involved, their first move will be a lockdown and communication lockout to keep everybody scared, cowed, controlled, and knowing nothing.
We have a newish emergency system, but it doesn’t involve loudspeakers. There is already a community siren system for tornadoes. Our campus system uses email, texting, cell phones, and landlines. We (including students) were asked to indicate our preference and provide any non-campus numbers or addresses we wanted to use. They test it once a semester, so it isn’t annoying.
We got one too, and it’s horrendous. The siren is distinct from the nuclear meltdown siren (!) for the local power plant that gets tested once a month, but the worst part is the phone calls. It calls my cell phone, it sends a text message to my cell phone, it sends me an email, and then it calls my office phone. You can hear the sequential office phone numbers on my floor as the auto-dialer walks down the hall…
the worst part is the phone calls. It calls my cell phone, it sends a text message to my cell phone, it sends me an email, and then it calls my office phone.
This is why I declined the request to sign up to have text messages sent to my cell phone…
Happily, they don’t call the office phones, but every time they do the tests, whatever I’m doing is delayed ten minutes as every phone in the room beeps in turn.
UC Berkeley installed one of these a few months after 9/11, and tested it on the first Wednesday of every month at noon. However, there weren’t any e-mails or anything, just the sirens. This made it a bit alarming for visitors, new postdocs, and anyone else who wasn’t expecting it…
We do this at Northrop, too, with the comic touch that the actual alert signal is, “A loud! Warble! Tone!” followed by what I sincerely hope is only a recording of a guy with a slide whistle blowing over the PA.
This has inspired a small but freakishly dedicated cohort in my office area (of which I am not part) which responds to it with their own, specially purchased slide whistles, as though it were some sort of demented and sad geek mating call-and-response system.
I can only wish I were making this up.
We instituted training drills after 9/11. Drills have their place — making certain responses more instinctive, which helps in stressful situations, but we satirized some of the sillier actions, like announcing “Set condition mauve! Plaid alert! Plaid alert!”
We have, of course, done the same thing.
That leads to a good Fermi Question: estimate how many billions went into that security business this past year. What a windfall for those businesses!
I hope our system sounds like the call of the Morlocks in the movie “The Time Machine”.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054387/
If not, I’m going to have to get a set of slide whistles. We have a similarly demented group of geeks in my office area.
We have an emergency plan here at the office which was implemented post 9/11. Being the cynical bastard I am, and a systems guy to boot, the first thing I did was point out where, how, and why it was broken. I’m terribly popular with security, these days.
So all anyone needs to do to increase the body count is send out an email telling everyone it is a test first?
I’m always a bit skeptical of the idea of telling people you are going to test them, what happens when it’s for real and you have people throwing the women and children out of the way of the door to get out first themselves, will the test get that?