Monday, September 28, 2009

Emergency Texting, again...

Speaking of the emergency communications technology the University of Pitt used over the weekend, a similar mishap occured even closer to home: at Messiah College.

At 1 a.m. last Saturday, September 19th, a student was walking along Messiah's many wooded trail areas and was accosted by a man wearing a ski mask. Fortunately, the student was able to scream and struggle to get away successfully.

For the rest of the weekend, students kept walking the trails around campus, having no idea that this had happened or that the perpetrator was at large. On Tuesday, the college sent an email regarding the situation. This has students perturbed. Why not sooner? Messiah has a emergency texting system, so why wasn't a text sent out to students?

Apparently, Upper Allen Police did not want to "compromise their investigation," while they proceeded to compromise every student's safety.

This is an example where the technology is there. Students do not necessarily check e-mail, but have their phone on them almost 24/7 these days. A text to registered cell phones is extremely necessary, and would not threaten an investigation, but would keep students safe.

LVC has a similar "e-text" alert system in place. The college here will actually perform a test of the emergency alerts next Monday, October 5th. Students have to sign up for text alerts, but the college has every student's e-mail in case of emergency.

LVC's Emergency Plan is outline at this Website:http://www.lvc.edu/emergency-plan/

Students: sign up for the e-text alert! When you are out on the weekends, without a computer, LVC can alert you to an emergency situation. We all know that texting is the quickest and most "guaranteed" form of communication today.

Be sure to sign up here: http://www.lvc.edu/emergency-plan/emergency-alerts.aspx

(This story was found on Pennlive.com at: http://www.pennlive.com/news/patriotnews/index.ssf?/base/news/125366460819560.xml&coll=1)

1 comment:

  1. Great writing! Yes, texting is real time now, a great communicator!! Keep up the neat articles!

    ReplyDelete

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