News
By Zak Kerr
|
January 30, 2013
Richmond students and staff are alerted by phone calls, emails or sirens whenever emergency information or safety measures need to be spread on campus, but these same alerts have not been offered to parents and community members.
As of last month, though, campus emergency alerts became available to everyone through Twitter, said Brittany Schaal, director of emergency management.
All people have to do -- even those without Twitter -- is send a message to 40404 that says, "Follow @URAlert," to receive campus emergency alerts from the @URAlert Twitter page via text message, Schaal said.
After Schaal and Doug West, assistant vice president of telecom, multimedia support and user services, tested this "Fast Follow" system in mid-December, university officials sent letters to local residents to inform them of their ability to register for this program for free, apart from potential data rates, Schaal said.
The university's other emergency alert platforms were connected to university e-mail and BannerWeb, which made them exclusive to students and staff, Schaal said.