Message Delivery Delays Posed Problems for FSU
Prior to the implementation of FSU’s “EZ Button,” the amount of time that emergency messages could be delivered was too long. Under the best circumstances, the activation time for FSU ALERT was 10 minutes. There was a 15 minute delivery time for SMS texts and a 60 minute delivery time for E-mail.
For example, the most ideal case scenario was the threat of forecasted severe weather, where the National Weather Service has a tornado watch in place, emergency management officials are monitoring the radar, and all of the emergency notification systems are cued up ready to go. Even under this scenario, it still took the most seasoned and experienced emergency notification professionals about 10 minutes to push all the right buttons to activate the different systems.
Now, consider some less than ideal situations. It is 2:30 a.m. You need to wake up, boot up a laptop, get connected to the Internet and start all the appropriate software. The next thing you know, it’s 30 minutes after the start of the emergency. That is assuming you are the most seasoned person running the system.
Now assume you are on a cruise in the Bahamas. Your primary backup person is on-scene at the incident with gun drawn engaging a suspect. Who’s next? Unfortunately, it is the guy who sat through training, has the procedures in hand but has little experience actually doing it. How long will he or she take?
Campus at a Glance
Florida State University (FSU) is home to m
ore than 41,000 students and 12,000 employees. The campus is located in central Tallahassee, adjacent to the state capitol, state supreme court, city hall, county courthouse, and numerous other businesses and state agencies. FSU is a dense urban campus with 215 buildings on 450 acres. Nearly 10,000 students reside on campus in housing. The campus population will swell to over 100,000 people during home football games at Doak Campbell Stadium, which has a capacity of about 83,000.
Dave Bujak is Florida State University’s emergency manager.
Related Articles:
