Our hearts go out to the Blacksburg community, students and faculty at Virginia Tech.
Founded in 1872 as a land-grant college named Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College, Virginia Tech is now a comprehensive, innovative research university with the largest full-time student population in Virginia. Through a combination of its three missions of learning, discovery, and engagement, Virginia Tech continually strives to accomplish the charge of its motto: Ut Prosim (That I May Serve).
The murders have educational institutions across the nation searching for preventive measures they can implement to avoid future tragedies on their campuses. Could some of the technology used in finding missing or abducted children be the answer?
One of the systems currently available is CodeRED. In the event of an emergency or Amber Alert, a system is in use by some cities and counties known as CodeRED. The notification system gives emergency-management officials the ability to deliver recorded emergency telephone alerts, warnings and advisories to targeted areas, or the entire city, at a rate of 50,000- 60,000 calls per hour.
There are some potential drawbacks but it is an effective means to reach the masses.
Amber Alerts are a voluntary program between broadcasters and Law Enforcement. The Amber Alert isn’t used or intended to be used in all missing child cases nor would it likely be used in all campus emergencies. It doesn’t necessarily become broadcast over highway billboards. Some states boast of 100% recovery success rates when the system is used.
An alert system specifically designed for locating missing children, the disabled and elderly during the first hours of disappearance is used by A Child is Missing a Ft. Lauderdale based nonprofit organization . The “A Child Is Missing” alert program is called on by law enforcement agencies throughout the nation seeking assistance in locating missing children. .
An evolving widespread technology often discussed is the use of a system similar to a Wireless Amber Alert. Most of them use text based messages although a pre-recorded message could be implemented.
12.5 billion messages in the month of June 2006, up 71% from 7.3 billion messages in June 2005
(Source: CITA The Wireless Association)
The District of Columbia has the Alert DC system which uses the Roam Secure Alert Network to provide immediate text notification and update information during a major crisis or emergency. This system delivers important emergency alerts, notifications and updates on a range of devices including your:
- e-mail account [work, home, other]
- cell phone
- pager, BlackBerry
- wireless PDA (Palm, iPAQ, etc…)
A major obstacle with the Amber Alert system are the criteria used to activate one. As more information becomes available the debate continues as to whether VT authorities should have informed students and faculty via other methods than e-mail. Some loudspeaker or audio alert systems also instruct people to take shelter in a nearby building which could put them at greater risk which could have been the situation at Virginia Tech.
-
What are the criteria for activating one?
-
Who can issue the alert?
-
What information should be included in the alert?
-
How is it distributed?
-
What happens in the case of false reports?
In the case of Amber Alerts, it can often take hours to determine the alert should be activated.
Note: To remember and honor the victims of April 16, the university has established the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund.
As this was being posted, this article brought into question the issue of system failures.
The BlackBerry system suffered a “massive system failure” after infrastructure failed at 8:00 p.m. EDT Tuesday, New York’s WNBC NewsChannel4 reported on its Web site. A ZDNet blog also said the trouble began at 8:00 p.m.
Leave a comment