Last week on Tuesday morning I filled up my water bottle in Dunbar Hall around 11 a.m. and went about
Ryan Minier
hydrating myself as I prepared for classes that day.
Everything seemed normal until I exited a classroom around 1 p.m. to see drinking fountains covered with garbage bags. To my surprise, they weren’t just out of order. After reading the accompanying signs, I found out that the campus water was unsafe to drink.
Fortunately, I didn’t feel any effects from drinking the potentially contaminated water, but overall last Tuesday’s water main break incident underscores the need for a campus‑wide alert system.
Western Michigan University has developed a commendable Emergency Operations Center which was activated to inform the university about the problem, bag the drinking fountains, and to begin bottled‑water distribution.
It was through this system that we received e-mailed warnings and updates about the water. A key part of this system though was missing: a way to instantly communicate to the entire WMU campus community. E-mail is a very efficient communication tool but by today’s instant information standards, it is still slow.
As part of its emergency response plans, WMU should implement a text‑messaging system to communicate warnings to students and faculty.
The use of text‑messaging and cell phones has exploded in popularity to the point of today where nearly everyone has a cell phone or is at least around someone who has a phone on campus.
WMU should take advantage of this technology for communication during emergencies. Even someone like me who has a cell phone and does not normally text would likely be willing to pay the 10 cents or so to receive important alerts.
Other Michigan universities have implemented this and other systems such as reverse 911 where phones can be called and given emergency information.
Michigan State University’s Web site allows students to register their phone numbers for text message alerts “in the event of a significant emergency or dangerous situation involving an immediate threat to the campus community.”
According to their respective Web sites, Grand Valley State University, Eastern Michigan University, Ferris State University, Northern Michigan University, Wayne State University, Oakland University, Michigan Tech University and the University of Michigan all have similar text messaging alert systems.
Of nearly all the public universities in Michigan, WMU lags behind in this potentially critical area. Even locally, Kalamazoo Valley Community College has a texting alert system. With larger and smaller universities and even an institution in Kalamazoo providing this service, there should be no logistical or financial reason why WMU is unable to.
Stephanie Sutton, a KVCC sophomore studying marketing didn’t know about KVCC’s text‑messaging system but after hearing about it planned to sign up for it right away. “It will be great to get texted when the college is closed,” Sutton said.
Text‑messaging alerts were considered for emergency alerts at WMU in 2007 after the Northern Illinois shooting tragedy but the university is no longer pursuing such a system after seeing the problems that other institutions have had, said Cheryl Roland, executive director of university relations.
One problem cited was that a massive surge of text messages could overwhelm cell phone towers and that text messages have a lower priority in cellular systems. Because of this low priority, text messages could be delayed or could even overwhelm the system to the point that it is unavailable for emergency calls.
A report by Patrick Traynor, Ph.D., an assistant professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology confirms this, but does acknowledge the role of cellular phones in an emergency stating that the role “would be complementary to other platforms of the Emergency Broadcasting System.”
Roland stated that the university had purchased a reverse 911 system that could call building managers and other staff phones during incidents on campus.
For an extreme emergency, the system could also call student phones. “Last week during the water incident, reverse 911 would have been a great way, along with our other tools, to alert building coordinators to steps they needed to take,” Roland said.
She said that procedures would have to be developed to determine when and whether or not alerts would be sent for various situations.
Despite its potential problems, WMU should work at developing a text messaging system that when used judiciously can give students important information without overwhelming phone systems.
“Having a variety of tools, both high‑ and low‑tech, at our disposal will make it possible to choose the right tools to fit the situation,” Roland said.
There is likely no perfect solution or system, but WMU should pursue this along with other options.
“We are currently looking at other tools, and our university will continue to identify and refine approaches,” Roland said.
The stakes on Tuesday were low, perhaps the worst that could happen was some upset stomachs from potentially contaminated water.
We need to be careful though not to become complacent in our preparedness. InsideHigherEd.com reported after the Northern Illinois University shooting tragedy that even though a public address system was used, something that many universities do not have, that text messaging would have provided an even stronger warning response.
WMU has taken strong steps in its emergency preparation plans which we saw in Tuesday’s efficient response.
Another aspect and tool for those emergency preparation plans should be a text‑messaging alert system like other major universities have.
Ryan Minier, a Western Herald Opinion columnist, is a graduate student in the Spanish department and can be reached via e-mail at ryan.j.minier@wmich.edu.
This sounds like a great idea!
I personally do not use texting at all, but almost all of my friends do, and I’m sure I would have known about the water emergency much sooner had something like this been in place.
I too drank quite a bit if the contaminated water that morning.