New PatriotALERT signals emergencies

University emergency management officials plan to use a new mass communication system next month to alert students, faculty and staff about emergencies requiring immediate action, such as a shooter on campus.

The PatriotALERT Emergency Notification Service is designed to simultaneously alert students and staff through e-mail, text and voice messages. 
PatriotALERT is expected to replace the TextCaster system, initiated to include emergency notifications since the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007, Peyton Low, emergency management coordinator, said.

“After Virginia Tech, emergency management became more of a focus on college campuses across the country, including ours,” Low said.
The PatriotALERT service works with the outdoor warning system already in place.

“[Patriot ALERT] is mainly designed to alert students and employees that are inside,” Low said. “The other thing we have is our outdoor warning systems; that’s designed for outdoor only. That shouldn’t be relied on, because [inside a building] you’re not going to be able to hear those things go off.”

The PatriotALERT notifications would immediately coordinate with University Police if a gunman began shooting on campus.

Heath Cariker, University sergeant of special operations, said prior to the Columbine shootings in 1999, police protocol was to wait for a tactical team to engage a shooter.

“So many kids were being slaughtered while waiting for this team to arrive that they had to rethink how this should be handled,” Cariker said.  “Now, if that happens the responding officers immediately go into a scene where the shooter or shooters are carrying out their actions and try to neutralize them as quickly as possible.”

Cariker said University Police officers would follow protocol if someone began shooting somewhere on campus. “If we got that call at the UC [that a shooter was present],” Cariker said, “right now there are three officers on duty, we would all show up over there, we would immediately organize into an entry team, we would go in and neutralize the threat.”

Some students state they are skeptical of their protection in light of the recent shootings in the media. Junior Audrey De Jenga, a psychology major, said she thought about the likelihood of a gunman on campus when hearing about the Virginia Tech massacre and the recent Fort Hood shooting on Nov. 5.

“I don’t think that we’re very much prepared at all,” De Jenga said.  “There could be a lot more security if the school wanted to, not just in the parking lot areas, but walking around campus.”

Cariker and Low agree the University’s open campus makes preventative security methods like metal detectors ineffective.  However, Low said he believes PatriotALERT is most likely to be used for severe weather emergencies.

Emergency protocol charts, provided by the Office of Emergency Management, are posted online and in classrooms and offices around the campus. Cariker and Low suggest students study the charts and sign up for PatriotALERT when it becomes available.

Low said PatriotALERT is scheduled to go into effect before the end of the semester.  Questions about the systems can be e-mailed to patriotalert@uttyler.edu.