Speakers Add Multipronged Approach to Notification on Campus

[Photo courtesy of Robert Pernell | Dreamstime.com.]

Bike theft is the No. 1 public safety concern on the campus of the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), but that doesn't stop the administration from preparing for the worst, including an active shooter situation.

That's why the campus continues to add to its layered approach to security — the latest
layer being the addition of five mass notification warning system speakers on the roof of a building at the heart of the campus.

The speakers, one of which was installed already with the remaining four to be installed within a year, have a range of 2,400 feet at 70 decibels, are an addition to the Notifier, a mass notification system installed by Honeywell. Emergency alerts and other notifications will be broadcast over the speakers notifying students, faculty and other personnel where to go in an emergency. The speakers are manufactured by Whelen Corp.

"One of the issues we have on campus is we have a notification system that notifies students of a situation via telephone or pager, but we wanted to make sure we had a duplication of that service," said Associate Vice Chancellor Ron Cortez. "If the service were to fail there will be a backup system."

An active shooter situation would require immediate notification and that was a consideration, Cortez said. "If we had a pending fire coming toward the community we'd have more time to notify faculty, students and staff, whereas an active shooter requires almost instant notification and that's where we'd need this system to help us."

Redundancy is also important in a notification system, and another reason the UCSB chose the Notifier system and the speakers was because they fit well with the existing backup generator program and fire alarm system, Cortez said.

"[Redundancy] is essential because during an earthquake or times where we could lose power we felt that would be one of the times when it was most important to notify the campus of emergencies,” he said. “And we wanted to make sure it worked during that time."

The UCSB's layered approach includes the telephone and pager system, which sends messages to students and faculty on campus; a radio system that broadcasts messages over the campus radio; and alerts through Facebook and electronic signs (the kind used on highways) located outside the school entrances.

"One of the points the police department on campus has been criticized for is pushing out information on minor incidents, which is critical," said Sgt. Matt Bowman of the UCSB Police Department. "In looking at it independently what we would need to succeed — that audio component was quickly realized to be a key piece."

There are "precomfirmed" messages for routine situations, but the dispatch center will send out original notification during an emergency, and the campus Emergency Operations Center, headed by Cortez, will craft subsequent messages.

"We have examples in binders for the dispatcher, but what we've found is just having a standard message for the dispatcher doesn’t necessarily work because each emergency needs to have some specific instructions," Cortez said.

Whatever the message might be, the multipronged approach to notification is essential, Cortez said. "Our belief is that the more systems we have, if one were to fail people will still get the message."