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(this post is only here in order to host the comment thread, below – why we would do such a thing)
Sciam Observations*
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Sciam Observations* 
As someone who has heard similar sirens before, I can say they work, provided you knew what it mean (in this case, it was Evacuate, there’s a hurricane! – Rita in this case.). It really makes you sit up and take notice.. but the problem is, you’ve got to know what it’s really for. As in, you can’t just install the system and tell people what it is, but not what it sounds like. Other wise, people will be standing around, scratching their heads, wondering what that’s about. And when freshmen come in, they can’t hear about it from word of mouth either.
Those tornado/hurricane alarms, I had to be told what it was when I heard it the first time (first time I remember it was for hurricane Andrew). I mean, yeah, don’t want to give a false alarm to the public, but you know, go to an elementary school and tell the kids about it. And then let them listen to it.. and so they know it’s not just for planes dropping bombs in the TV.
Some schools have intercom systems, which I liked a lot. There was an emergency button in the teacher’s classroom, which connected directly to the campus police (who talked back to you). Believe me, this worked… and had there something very bad been going on, I’d of used it then too.
Being able to lock the door from the inside is useful as well. Most school doors I’ve encountered can only be locked from the outside with a key. When I work in a classroom, I keep my door closed and locked. It makes it so that a kid has to knock when they return (from whatever), and so that I will be aware of when they come back. However, not all teachers do this.. and I understand that.
Or install deadbolts into all the doors. Something so that someone can be prevented from coming in without a teacher having to step into the hallway and fiddle with keys.
There’s not one solution, several need to be put into place. E-mail is a good start, but there needs to be more than this. Several systems in place, to ensure everyone knows.
I mean, once, I got up, it was raining, and I went to class like nothing was going on (because it rains all the time in Southeast Texas). Little did I know that class was canceled because of heavy flooding in the area. There had been an e-mail about it… and it was on the news, but I don’t exactly watch TV.
So, there has to be multiple systems in place, because people live their lives differently. And if enough people are told, even if its not everyone, they will tell everyone else.
And then on top of that, teachers in classrooms need safety measures, so that they can protect their students.
Oh, another system I remember. During a lock down, lock the door, and then slide a colored slip of paper under the door (the colored changed each year). And if the police came by and there wasn’t a slip of paper out, they broke into the room.
Now, that was about the stupidest solution yet. Because students could easily find out what the car color was during a drill.. or by snooping through a teacher’s desk… or they force the students to the back of the room and turn out the lights, making it look like the teacher was gone. Or maybe there was a sub in the class who couldn’t find the paper (or the teacher loses it).. lots of things to go wrong, which means lots of time wasted breaking into classrooms.. and not to mention the damage.
There’s better solutions out there. But they need to be fast, easy, secure, and not take too much thought to do.
Oh, and yes, I could see where dead bolts could be a problem. Someone locks themselves into a room.. but by that point, its already trouble. I’d rather have the dead bolt, even if it means the police take a little longer to get in.. because by the time the police get there, whatever is going to happen, has.
Alert systems are not going to work. 99% of college students including myself took most alarms, road blocks, warning signs as a joke or a test. Sure *now* people might be worried but still.
Even if there was a system, all it means is this guy would have acted sooner, or used it to his advantage, or gone to shoot up a Walmart instead.
Facebook seems to be students’ medium of choice in many universities. Many check it compulsively, and any news can spread very quickly through the networks. The developers could probably very easily implement an alert system to notify everyone at a single university, although measures would have to be taken to prevent abuse.
Alert technologies for mobile phones already exist and are in use around the world. For large corporate events at my company we get text message alerts for agenda/location changes (despite employees using different mobile service providers). I assume that the university can ask students to register their phone number and service provider name with them. If and when needed, an alert can be sent out to all.
In fact a few months ago, mobile phone text message alerts were used by Bangalore city adminstration as a public information system. Disaster relief agencies are also looking into this as a means of communication before or after disasters (such as the Pacific Tsunami).
I’m a college student and I don’t know if I consider road blocks or warning signs necessarily as a joke or a test…or if deadbolts are a good solution…what alert system I have found that seems to have had some significant effect is the AMBER ALERT SYSTEM. Which stands for America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response. http://www.amberalert.gov/about/faqs.htm
Regina B. Schofield, the Assistant Attourney General of the US Dep. of Justice states, “AMBER Alert is a proven success and has helped rescue more than 324 children nationwide. More than 90 percent of those recoveries have occurred since AMBER Alert became a nationally coordinated effort in 2002…”
How this system works is that “Once law enforcement has determined that a child has been abducted and the abduction meets AMBER Alert criteria, law enforcement notifies broadcasters and state transportation officials. AMBER Alerts interrupt regular programming and are broadcast on radio and television and on highway signs. AMBER Alerts can also be issued on lottery tickets, to wireless devices such as mobile phones, and over the Internet. Through the coordination of local, state and regional plans, the Department of Justice (DOJ) is working towards the creation of a seamless national network.” (U.S. Dep. of Justice website)
I propose that they create some sort of similar system but geared towards a college or high school campus. When I see these signs or hear these alerts I pay attention. A warning system WOULD be effective. Having had a warning system at the VT campus doesn’t necessarily mean he would have acted sooner or shot up a Walmart…why couldn’t it have PREVENTED him from killing more??? And no, this particular type of system wouldn’t be perfect…no system is…but we have to at least attempt to prevent these incidences….or to use what knowledge we have, especially with tragedies like these, to our advantage…and learn from it.
-My heart goes out to all the students, faculty and persons affected by this tragedy-
Whatever alert system you use you must test it but minimize false alarms. If you have false alarms then the system is useless. So many people have cell phones now that text messaging alerts to every student/teacher and school employee would be highly effective. (also cost effective) It would be simple for students to register their cell number at a web site that the school provides.
I am currently working on a large campus. Relying on either e-mail or phone trees is not sufficiently rapid to get emergency news out accross a wide area. The old emergency siren backed by a plan as to what you must do when the siren sounds is probably the most rapid and reliable method yet known. Hi Tech is not necessarily the best.
The advantage of the siren is that it can be activated with a phone call, Is heard both inside and outside, as well as in nearby vehicles. Coupled with a widely disseminated emergency plan for individuals, a siren could have alerted the entire campus within moments of the original shootings. Follow up with e-mail or rapid posting to a central web site would provide more information.
“But experts in communications, as well as student lifestyles, are saying that ad-hoc alert systems would be much faster and more in sync with how students actually communicate–and that if a plan to exploit these technologies were in place, students could have known not go to class, to stay locked in their dorm rooms, or take other precautions.”
How could students have “known not to go to class,” or to “stay locked in their dorm rooms”?
If a young man in a neighborhood shoots a girl with whom he is obsessed and her friend, does it make sense for everyone in the neighborhood to stay locked in their homes?
The murders in Ambler Johnston occurred at ~7:15 am.
What are the second-guessers and Monday-morning-quarterbacks suggesting happen afterward? Completely shut down Dietrick Dining Hall, which is not even 100 yards away, and probably serves breakfast to over 2000 people every single morning?
Or perhaps shut down every single dining hall all across campus?
Evacuate all ~30,000 people associated with the university?
Did the authorities even know (or strongly suspect) that Cho Seung-Hui was the shooter in the Ambler Johnston?
It appears not:
http://www.tdn.com/articles/2007/04/19/ap/headlines/d8ojuq6g0.txt
How about having a security guard at every building floor? Or a mass, campus-wide PA system?
“How about having a security guard at every building floor?”
*Everything* is worth thinking about and discussing. So I’m not dismissing your suggestion out of hand. But such a system would be very, very expensive. Take Ambler Johnston Hall (the dormitory where the first two shootings occurred). There’s an East Wing and a West Wing that are separated by large community rooms. And there are 8 floors. So are we talking about 8 people, or 16 people? Let’s say 8 people, at only $50,000 each per year (with salary plus benefits, that’s very low). That’s $400,000 per year, just for that one building. Considering that there are about 1000 students in that building, that’s $400 per year per student just for that building!
And there is the issue that many buildings have very large lecture rooms/auditoriums that sit more than 150 students each. If a gunman entered such a room and started shooting, he could easily kill dozens of students in a couple of minutes…even if there WAS a guard just down the hall. (And let’s ignore the fact that a single security guard would be a fool to just rush into a room where a gunman was, without attempting to figure out where the gunman was…if the guard could even get past the panicked students who would be trying desperately to flood out the exits.)
“Or a mass, campus-wide PA system?”
My understanding is that Va Tech has such a system. But let’s say it doesn’t, and it put such a system in place. What would they say after the 7:15 am murders of two students in Ambler Johnston dormitory? The campus police were apparently interviewing their primary suspect in those two shootings, even as Cho Seung-Hui was committing the mass murders in Norris Hall, clear across campus. So I don’t see any useful information that could have been conveyed between 7:15 am and the mass murders clear across campus more than 2 hours later.
It seems to me that one important lesson to learn from the shootings (and there are probably many important lessons) is how to deal with a student that several people have identified as potentially dangerous. At least one professor and at least one student had apparently notified police regarding Cho Seung-Hui’s troubling writings and his stalking of female students.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0419071cho1.html
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0417071vtech1.html
One thing that infuriates me is to have a know-nothing blogger at Scientific American pretend that there was some simple communications technology “fix” that could have made Va Tech somehow completely safe, just because people on campus were all aware that *someone somewhere* on campus might have a gun (and *might* use it). Even if people don’t go to class, they have to eat. They have to go to the bathroom.