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UL is ahead of the state’s deadline for public colleges and universities to have emergency alerting systems in place by June 30 next year.
For the past few months, UL officials have been developing new alerting features — free text messaging service, enhancing phone hotline capabilities, and a weather radios to broadcast alerts across campus via a Local Area Emergency alert signal in cooperation with the National Weather Service.
“The pieces of the puzzle have been placed,” said Joey Pons, UL’s environmental health and safety director. “We’re working on a protocol to test all the pieces together.”
That emergency drill may not be before students return for classes in January because of the coordination needed among local parish emergency, the National Weather Service in Lake Charles, and other agencies, Pons explained.
Following the shootings on the Virginia Tech campus earlier this year, the Board of Regents created a four-pronged approach to analyzing and improving campus security on the state’s college campuses.
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Marsha Sills
msills@theadvertiser.com
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A national consultant has been hired to create a tool for universities to perform online assessments of their physical security on campus.
And earlier this fall, the UL System hired national consulting firm, Dewberry and Davis to conduct reviews of its campuses’ security plans, including UL.
Pons said he’s unsure at this time, how or if UL would need to tweak its alert system once the state outlines its emergency alert plans, Pons said.
“I don’t know to what extent we might have to adapt,” he said. “I think this university is a bit ahead of the board’s plans. We’ll move ahead with ours and make sure we fit their recommendations.”
Last week, the Board of Regents announced that a contract had been awarded for the development of an alerting system to provide broadcast e-mail, reverse 911 capabilities and cellular phone text message notification.
Earlier this year, UL Police and other local agencies conducted a shooter response training on the campus. Statewide, 75 percent of campuses have completed the training, according to the Board of Regents.
“Probably the biggest problem when dealing with emergency notification is how much time do you have?” Pons said.
With a hurricane, there are potentially days to prepare, he added.
“On the other hand, a tragedy like Virginia Tech or another disaster like a chemical spill, we may only have minutes to react,” he said.
Minutes count. Pons said once a 911 call is received by the university police, the system will be set in motion.
It could take up to five minutes or less, for each piece of the system to be activated.
And the text messaging service is unpredictable.
“We have no control over how quickly the text message goes out. We’re at the mercy of mobilecampus and the cell phone providers,” Pons said.
That might not be an issue, though.
So far, only about 2,500 campus staffers, students or faculty have signed up for the free text message emergency alerts.
“That’s about 10 percent of our campus,” Pons said.
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