Most students walking about outside went on with their day, wondering aloud at what the noise was all about. For those inside buildings, few heard the warnings. The ringing, however, wasn't a cause for concern, rather it was the university's fall semester test of its emergency alert system.
Michael Gaffney, with the WSU Office of Emergency Management, said the emergency alert speakers are only placed outside and not meant to alert students inside the buildings. To notify students and faculty inside buildings of emergencies, the university relies on text messages, phone calls, social media alerts and emails.
"Indirectly it will reach people who received the message," he said. "In a real emergency we would expect them to share that information.
"The reason we have (loudspeakers) is for people who are outside and not paying attention to their phones. They were never intended to cover the whole campus or cover inside buildings - it's an outside alert system."
Trouble is, not everyone got the memo about the emergency alert test.
Students like freshman Amanda Fry said they didn't receive any notification the test was going to happen, or while the emergency alert system test was conducted.
Freshman Landyn Barton sat above a pool of water on the mall, waiting to be dunked by the throw of a ball, all to raise awareness for juvenile diabetes research. Barton and some of his Delta Tau Delta fraternity brothers said they didn't know about the emergency alert test and didn't receive any notifications as it was underway.
Madeline Burger, a freshman who was in the Compton Union Building, said she received an email from the university informing her the alert would be taking place, but she didn't know the emergency test had been conducted because she never heard it.
Gaffney said overall the emergency alert system test was successful.
He said nearly 30,000 students are signed up throughout WSU's global campus with the university's emergency alert system and he had only received one email in regards to a student who had signed up for the system and not received the alert.
Gaffney said it's important WSU students log on to their myWSU account and sign up for the alerts.
"We will be sending out an email later today that explains more about the test and reminds people to go to myWSU to sign up for alerts if they didn't get them and want to," Gaffney said. "You have to sign up and specify a number of mechanisms - we chose five: text, cellphone, WSU phone, email and an app. ... If you signed up for all five, you would get all five. I got all five myself, so I know it worked."
Josh Babcock can be reached at (208) 883-4630, or by email to jbabcock@dnews.com.
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