UMaine to Upgrade Emergency Communications System
Contact: Joe Carr at (207) 581-3571
ORONO — While University of Maine officials call the university’s Friday Oct. 19 emergency communications system a success, they say it also revealed areas that need improvement. System upgrades are already in the works, moving toward what Dean of Students Robert Dana says will be a “model system and process” for communicating emergency information on a university campus.
In August, UMaine announced its new, multi-layered system for getting the word out during an emergency. The system includes umaine.txt, a Web-based mechanism that allows university safety and communications officials to instantly send cell phone text messages and email messages to those students, faculty members and staff members who subscribe. The system also involves updates on UMaine’s website, recorded messages at 581-INFO, postings on the university’s internal electronic communications system and an audible siren that serves as a signal to seek information through one of those mechanisms.
The system is described on umaine.edu, on stickers placed in every residence hall room and on at least one exterior door of every campus building. Students have also been made aware of the system through multiple email contacts, and a printed flyer was mailed in August to every staff member and faculty member.
“We are committed to taking every reasonable measure to assure the safety of everybody in our community,” Dana says. “Friday’s test showed that we have the appropriate pieces in place, and that we are capable of executing the series of coordinated actions very quickly. That gives us great confidence that we are well-prepared to handle communications during a real emergency.”
Even so, Dana says, two parts of the system were not as effective as had been hoped. The siren, which is clearly audible across campus in all outdoor locations, was not loud enough to be heard inside every campus building on a weekday afternoon, when there is a good deal of ambient noise. UMaine’s Dept. of Public Safety is in contact with the company that provided the siren to determine the best way to effectively augment that system.
“We are confident that the siren, as it currently exists, will be an effective tool. It would most certainly wake students in residence halls if it were to be sounded at night and, during the day, one can hear it in most UMaine locations. Nonetheless, we want to improve it so that saturation is complete,” Dana says.
The umaine.txt email option, which allows for delivery of emergency information directly to subscribers’ email mailboxes, did not work at an optimal level during the Friday test, as it took too long for those messages to reach some subscribers. This problems was related to a technical glitch, which UMaine addressed with the service’s provider on Friday. To resolve this issue, UMaine President Robert Kennedy has approved a system upgrade which will cause those messages to be delivered to every email account on the university’s primary email system, known as First Class, whether the account holder has subscribed to umaine.txt or not.
The cell phone text message delivery mechanism did work properly during the Oct. 19 test.
Dana has also expressed concern about the relatively low number of subscribers to umaine.txt, despite numerous efforts to make students and others aware of the system and its value with regard to personal safety. UMaine has some 12,000 students and 2,500 faculty and staff members, yet only about 3,100 have signed up for the free system.
“Unfortunately, this percentage tracks quite closely with those numbers being reported at colleges and universities around the U.S.,” Dana says. “But we’re not content with just being at the average. We will continue to work with those in our community to convince them of the good reasons to register. This service is free, it only takes a minute to sign up, and we promise not use personal information provided for any other purpose.”
To help influence more students to register, Dana will send a letter to the university’s list of student parents later this week. He says he hopes many of those parents will convince their sons and daughters to register with umaine.txt.