The Emergency Notification System and Protocol at Virginia Tech

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1 Introduction The Emergency Notification System and Protocol at Virginia Tech Michael J. Mulhare, P.E., Director Office of Emergency Management Virginia Tech Blacksburg, VA Telephone: (540) Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University was founded in 1872 as a land grant institution. Today Virginia Tech is the most comprehensive university in the Commonwealth of Virginia and is among the leading research universities in the nation. Virginia Tech is comprised of nine colleges. The main campus is located in Blacksburg. It encompasses 2,600 acres, where there are over 125 major buildings, housing for 9,000 students and a 66,000 seat football stadium. The campus is contiguous with an executive airport and the largest corporate research center in southwestern Virginia. Virginia Tech also owns and operates 3200 acres of agricultural facilities within 10 miles radius of the central campus. Additional campus centers are located throughout the Commonwealth. The University enrolls more than 30,000 students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries. These students participate in 180 academic degree programs. Virginia Tech began the process of expanding and enhancing its notification system in the fall of 2006 and was in the final stages of selecting a vendor when the tragic events of April 16 occurred. Following the shooting on our campus there was an unprecedented demand for mass communication solutions throughout higher education. The need for a mass communication at colleges and universities was codified by changes to the Clery Act in The 2008 revisions state an institution of higher education must, immediately notify the campus community upon the confirmation of a significant emergency or dangerous situation involving an immediate threat to the health or safety of students or staff occurring on the campus, as defined in paragraph (6), unless issuing a notification will compromise efforts to contain the emergency. The Virginia Tech was interested in leveraging additional communication channels including text or short message system (SMS) direct to personnel cell phones, instant messaging, and phones and s to numbers and mailboxes that are outside the university s network. These new message delivery channels would be aligned with existing channels that included the university homepage, the Virginia Tech News website, broadcast alerts, broadcast voice mail messages, a recorded emergency hotline, university switchboard and utilization of public media outlets.

2 VT Alerts VT Alerts is Virginia Tech's Emergency Notification System. In a campus emergency, Virginia Tech will use several information delivery methods to reach the community. VT Alerts is activated when there is a required near term action to be taken on the part of the university community such as sheltering from a storm, the cancellation of classes on short notice, if there is a dangerous situation on campus that could impinge on personal safety or when the Virginia Tech Police Department or the university administration determines there is an immediate threat to the university community. Initial VT Alerts messages will provide basic information on what to do; further instructions and updates will be provided by subsequent VT Alerts messages or first responders. In-depth information, when available, will be posted to the university homepage. A multiple channel system provides necessary redundancy. At any given time, one form of communications might be more successful in reaching stakeholders than another. VT Alerts delivers messages using some or all of the following channels: The Virginia Tech homepage ( Broadcast s Electronic message boards in classrooms The weather/emergency hotline Campus sirens and loudspeakers The university switchboard VT Phone Alerts VT Desktop Alerts The VT Alerts channels utilize both internal and external delivery methods. The Virginia Tech homepage, a Virginia Tech internal system, is an extremely robust communication tool having the capability to provide detailed emergency information. Following an initial notification, the community may be directed to the homepage to receive updates and direction. The homepage has the capability to function in a light format during a time of extreme demand. The limitation of this delivery system is that one has to be viewing the webpage to receive an alert. Broadcast is also an internal system which delivers more than 40,000 alert messages to university accounts in less than five minutes. The system is not constrained by the character limitations of a short message system (SMS)/ text message. The university has installed over 500 message boards on the Blacksburg campus. Utilizing instant messaging technology, this in-house system typically post messages to the boards in under 10 seconds. The university switch board and weather/emergency hotline are dial in systems where stakeholders can obtain emergency information. The siren and loud speaker system on the Blacksburg campus is primarily designed to provide an early warning for weather events. The system has the capability to broadcast recorded or real time voice messages and can be utilized to inform the campus population that is not located within a building. VT Phone Alerts is a subscriber-only feature of VT Alerts. The feature allows a subscriber to receive urgent notifications where and how they want. Students are

3 required to opt in or out during the online registration process. Before selecting courses for a future term, students need to provide and confirm emergency contact information and to decide whether or not to subscribe to VT Alerts. Students must respond to those requests before proceeding to the course selection process. Each subscriber can select up to three different methods to be contacted. These contact methods include: Text message (SMS) to mobile devices Instant message (AOL, MSN, ICQ, and Yahoo) (including non-virginia Tech addresses) Phone call to office Phone call to residence Phone call to mobile number Phone call to another destination VT Phone Alerts currently delivers to over 80,000 points of contact. Approximately 40,000 faculty, staff, and student subscribe, averaging two points of contact each. The 80,000 voice or text message contacts rely on the services of the telephone carriers. Virginia Tech contracts with a vendor specializing in emergency notification. The vendor receives the messages and bundles them for specific service carriers (i.e. one bundle for Verizon customers, another for AT&T, etc.), and delivers the bundles to each carrier. The carriers then deliver the messages to subscribers. Delivery time in the Blacksburg area ranges from seconds up to 20 minutes. Speed of delivery is a function of the volume of messages sent and the text and voice traffic volume being experienced by the carrier at the time the emergency notification is sent. The remaining channel in the VT Alert system is VT Desktop Alerts. The desk top alert is an application that receives Virginia Tech emergency messages from the internet. While many of the VT Alert channels require a recipient to have a Virginia Tech address and a personal identifier; anyone can down the Desktop Alert software. It does require that a computer be connected to the internet to receive an alert. Desktop alerts provides a means for other interested parties, such as parents and those not directly affiliated with the university, to receive emergency notifications without compromising the speed of message delivery which would occur if the number of VT Phone Alerts subscriber were increased to accommodate these constituents. To expedite delivery of emergency notifications, Information Technology at Virginia Tech developed a common user interface or dashboard that allows officials to send messages over four different delivery methods including university , university homepage, electronic message boards, VT Phone Alerts and VT Desktop Alerts at the same time. Recently, the university has reconfigured the VT Phone Alerts and Broadcast channels to a regional format. Students, staff and faculty can configure their VT alert account to receive alert messages for a university facility in a specific region across Virginia. The subscriber can choose up to three regions; the main campus at Blacksburg is the default setting.

4 Emergency Notification System (ENS) Protocols Virginia Tech has developed specific protocols for the utilization of the VT Alerts system. The purpose of these guidelines is to standardize the process for activating the VT Alerts when there is a threat or emergency as well as formalize the intent and purpose of the ENS system. VT Alerts is not designed to provide routine communications but is reserved for emergencies; when the university community needs to be informed and needs to take an action. The protocols remove ambiguity by defining when, how and by whom an emergency message will be initiated. The standard operating procedures are designed to reduce the time required to authorize the issuance of an alert by emplacing the decision-making at the operational/response level. Messages generated via the protocols follow formatting consistent with VT Phone Alerts system characteristics. Therefore, regardless of delivery channel, messages will conform to the SMS standard of no more than 160 characters. All messages will contain (at a minimum) the following information; nature of the incident, location and the actions to be taken by affected populations. Templates have been developed for many emergency scenarios. The intent of the template is to reduce the time required to compose a message and ensure that the message does not exceed the character limitation. The following is an example of a hazmat incident template: Hazardous spill in (LOCATION) Evacuate immediately- Follow instructions from authorities-call 911 if you need help- All others avoid area (136) The message template provides the nature of the incident and the action to be taken. The system operator needs to provide the location of the incident. The number in parenthesis (136) informs the user of the number of characters already allocated. A custom template is available to create incident specific messages. Additional or subsequent messaging via non-vt Phone Alerts channels, which are not character limited, are used to convey more information as appropriate. The VT homepage and hotline may be used to provide additional and/or supplemental information about the alert or the incident. Conclusion The selection of technology and the writing protocols do not complete the development of a successful emergency notification system. Drills, exercises and testing are critical to maintain readiness. At Virginia Tech, daily silent tests of the system are conducted. A university wide activation exercise of VT Alerts is conducted every semester. Authorized university officials participate in exercises and drills to review scenarios and to practice activation procedures. It is also important for the campus community to receive information describing the systems functionality and limitations; to understand the multi-modes of delivery and the technological limitations (many beyond the control

5 of an institution) that dictate the speed by which messages are delivered. The campus community needs to view an alert system as a mass notification tool. When a message is received it should be shared with those who are near. In the event of an actual emergency, individuals must be ready to act on an alert message, be aware of their surroundings and be prepared to take immediate responsibility for their personal safety and security.