Tech answers call to improve security

The tragedy that occurred at Virginia Tech this past April has shed a spotlight on safety and emergency warning practices at all universities around the country. Beginning this semester, Tech began rolling out its own action plan in the event of an emergency. Dubbed the Georgia Tech Emergency Notification System (GTENS), this new system will deliver warnings through various mediums to alert the campus in the event of a life-safety issue.

"[Tech] has been working on this system months before the incident at Virginia Tech. That's why we [have] been able to roll out this system now," said Andy Altizer, Tech Emergency Preparedness Director.

"The events at Virginia Tech added emphasis for all campuses around the country. This encouraged and motivated us to have something running by the fall semester," said Ron Hutchins, Tech Chief Technology Officer.

All emergency warnings will be preceded by the words "Emergency Campus Alert." This will be followed by a description of the situation, immediate actions to be taken and finally, where to find follow-up information. One of the systems being installed to deliver the messages is the "Voice in the Sky" system. It will consist of an outdoor siren and speakers that will be incorporated into GTENS.

"I was pleasantly surprised how [the speakers] are loud and clear. [They] will help provide a warning to those who are outdoors and also visitors who aren't part of [GTENS]," Altizer said.

Warnings sent through GTENS will also appear in all official Tech email accounts and over the campus cable networks. Optional voice and text message warnings will be sent to all those who choose to apply for these services when they register at passport.gatech.edu.

"As of [Aug. 20], we've had 23% of the campus register for the system with 78% of those choosing to opt into the voice and text message systems," Altizer said.

The contact information for emergency alerts is being gathered in-house by Tech. It is then being sent to an outside company, Connect-ED, who will handle notification, ensuring that issues like a campus power failure won't hamper the ability of people to receive notification in the case of an emergency.

All of GTENS will be paid for by Tech. No one will have to pay extra service fees with the exception being for text message warnings, which will charge according to each users' text messaging plan.

"The system will work across the board, so it doesn't matter what phone service a person is using. Connect-ED has the ability to deliver 2,000,000 voice messages in an hour and nearly that amount in text messages. They are able to guarantee that messages are sent, but because of the nature of text messages, it is impossible to tell whether they have been received... We are currently discussing campus wide testing scenarios such as a test every year or once a every semester," Hutchins said.

Implementation of GTENS has been split up into three distinct sections. The responsibility of Hutchins and Office of Information Technology has been installing and testing the technology that is going into the new system. This process includes gathering information for the warning services and upgrading passport.gatech.edu so that users are able to enter their contact information.

Institute Communications and Public Affairs has been the entity distributing and communicating to campus about the newly implemented GTENS. Finally, it is the duty of the Tech campus police to determine what is to be considered an emergency or life-safety situation and deliver the warning. They are currently putting together a document that will sum up what will fall under the life-safety description.

"The keys to our success are making an early determination that a situation is a real emergency and sending out the message... Getting the senior staff connected to one another is important, and there is a call -in number for them to do this if an incident arises," Altizer said.

Additionally, this summer the police were involved in additional training on top of their normal police regimen. It included training to actively respond to a shooter on campus. These emergency response exercises were to prepare the police with how to deal with a shooter situation. They role-played various scenarios, including hostage situations and confrontations with a shooter utilizing dummy ammunition.

"My greatest hope is that we'll never have the need [to utilize GTENS] to warn campus, but it is necessary that we are prepared for all situations," Hutchins said.