Only a Test

It's 11 a.m. on a Tuesday.

In the distance, sirens blare. Your mobile phone chimes with a text message, just as an e-mail flashes in your inbox. Both include the heading: "DukeALERT."

Now what?

That's the question Duke officials want students, faculty and staff to consider Oct. 7 during a campus-wide test of the DukeALERT notification system.

Aaron Graves, associate vice president for Campus Safety and Security, said activating DukeALERT for this first system-wide test will help Duke community members become more familiar with how they will be notified in an emergency and what they should do in response.

"We hope we'll only need to activate this system for testing," Graves said. "But if we need to use it in a real emergency, the testing will help people quickly recognize the source and nature of any alert message."

Graves said circumstances in an actual emergency will dictate specific actions to take, such as evacuating, taking shelter or securing the area.

On Oct. 7, the only action Duke community members will be asked to take is to respond to an online survey to assess the effectiveness of various DukeALERT communication methods. The survey, which will be posted on emergency.duke.edu and promoted through various channels, will help determine which methods worked best for different groups. The results will also help identify areas for improvement.

"Each of these tools has been tested individually, but we have not tested them collectively, as they would be used during an emergency," said Richard Riddell, vice president and university secretary, who is Duke's crisis coordinator. "It is important for us to do this to troubleshoot issues that may not have emerged in testing these systems independently."

Duke improved and enhanced its notification and response plans following a 2007 review of its emergency management capabilities. The university now has new protocols, procedures and tools to quickly and effectively communicate during an emergency such as a tornado, campus violence or chemical spill. The notification methods, unified under the DukeALERT name, include e-mail alerts, an emergency website, an outdoor warning system and text messaging, among others.

The emergency website, emergency.duke.edu, was redesigned this summer and now offers easy access by iPhone and other mobile devices.

A blog on the site will be activated in certain emergencies, making the website a central information source with updates as situations unfold.

Two other notification tools came on-line over the summer -- the outdoor warning system and text messaging service. The campus-wide network of sirens will blast warning tones and voice messages to alert people outdoors during life-threatening emergencies. Duke launched text messaging in August; within the first month, more than 2,500 students, faculty and staff enrolled through the emergency website. The first text message was sent Aug. 24, after a reported robbery of a Duke student.

As part of the federal Clery Act, universities are required by law to send timely warnings to students and employees of crimes that pose an ongoing threat and occur on or immediately adjacent to campus.

Deborah Johnson, assistant vice provost, said she saw first-hand during preparations for Tropical Storm Hanna the benefits of having an emergency management plan and DukeALERT. The blog on the emergency website was activated as the storm crawled toward the North Carolina coast and offered information about the evacuation of undergraduate students at the Marine Lab in Beaufort.

"Getting people to sit down and talk about what needs to happen has been a good thing," said Johnson, director of administrative and community support services. "The more we are aware and the more we communicate with each other, it shows what this is all about -- our safety."