“It was a very positive drill. Things worked,” said Amherst College Police Chief John Carter. “We always identify opportunities for improvement,” he added.
The volume of the horns was most noticeably in need of improvement. The horns are intended to alert students who are outside during an emergency to check their cell phones or e-mail to receive the transmitted instructions. Many students didn’t hear the horns and others who did have questioned their sufficiency.
“In all honestly, it seemed to me that Amtrak makes a louder noise when it goes honking past our school,” said Esteban Parker ’10, who was walking in the Freshman Quad when the horns were sounded. “I had expected it to be something like a foghorn or one of those really loud emergency horns that are cliché in movies with nuclear attacks and things, but I can’t even remember what the horns sounded like in the first place. A lot of people who I asked don’t remember hearing it, and if that is the case, then I do wonder what would happen in an actual emergency.”
Carter said that the volume of the horns would be addressed, be it through simply raising the intensity of the horns in place or installing additional ones. “We started off cautiously, now we’ll make it a little louder,” he said.
However, Carter also noted that some student concerns have been misinformed. The horns are not supposed to be heard within buildings. “The horns were intended to be an outside warning device. We need to do some education around that because a lot of people said, ‘well, I didn’t hear them inside the building.’ And really the intent of the horn is if you’re walking across campus, to give you some warning to check whatever your notification choice is.”
The expectation, according to Carter, is that of the students within buildings during an emergency, at least someone would see the emergency notice and circulate the instructions by word of mouth. “We don’t want the horns to sound inside of a building because we’re all trained, when we hear an alarm inside the building, that we leave the building, which is counter to what we’re trying to do.”
Additionally, the test uncovered that the College’s e-mail filters can interfere with the e-mail notifications. According to Carter, while the phone and text messages were sent nearly instantly, it took seven minutes for the e-mails to be sent out. This issue has since been resolved and the filters will not interfere should a mass e-mail need to be disseminated during an actual emergency.
Nonetheless, the main motivation for the new, multi-tiered system is that e-mail alone fails to be an adequate, timely mode of notification. Following the tragedy at Virginia Tech., it became apparent that communication could be a key in containing an emergency and avoiding disaster.
“E-mail is not a great solution, because it could be hours before you check your e-mail, particularly for students. Cell phones and text messages were definitely where it was at for students,” said Carter.
“If they sent us an e-mail that said they’re was a gunman on campus, probably no one would get the e-mail until it was too late,” commented Farris Hassan ’11.
Yet, some students are skeptical of the new system’s usefulness. “I don’t think it’s necessary,” said Alex Weckenman ’10. “I think it’s important for the school to do, just to say they’re doing something.”
Whether necessary or not, with the test on Friday morning, the College unveiled to students, faculty and staff a system that has been several years in the making and gave the school a chance to work out some glitches. “This was a test. It did exactly what a test is supposed to do. It showed us what worked really well, and it showed us places where we can make improvements,” said Carter. “It puts us really ahead of the curve for an actual emergency.”