IU officials review emergency preparedness

When a student was shot and killed on its campus Tuesday, Purdue University’s emergency response systems were put to the ultimate test.

Alerts, calls and tweets flew through airwaves, and a suspect in the shooting was arrested within minutes of police response.

But despite preparation, training and protocol implemented to deal with scenarios like the shooting at Purdue, IU’s Director of Emergency Communications Services Susan Williams said there is no way to prepare for such a tragedy.

“This is a university’s worst nightmare,” Williams said. “I would really want to go ahead and extend our thoughts to people at Purdue. Above all, our thoughts go out to them.”

Williams said IU’s emergency response relies heavily on IU-Notify, a service that sends messages to students and faculty through text messages, emails and phone calls.

“If somebody didn’t get it in one way, hopefully they would get it in another,” Williams said.

These messages come from the police as soon as they are received, then are transferred to people on campus immediately.

Deb Fletcher, director of emergency management and continuity, said faculty members are responsible for their classes.

IU spokesman Mark Land said the main goal is to help receive information and get students to safety.

During a possible crisis, Williams said the police would handle the situation while students sought safety and shelter.

Students would be asked to stay where they were if they felt safe and lock or barricade doors as necessary. 

“The best thing to do really depends on the room,” Fletcher said. “Any room could be a sheltered location.”

“Our plan is to try to keep in contact with people through IU-Notify every half hour or so,” Williams said.

Fletcher said they can tell students what to do for a fire or weather disaster. With a shooter, everything depends on location.

“We suggest that you don’t leave unless you have to,” Fletcher said. “People need to be aware of their surroundings.”

Similar to the knife incident in October 2013, all actions were taken to ensure the safety of students and faculty until there was no longer a major or unknown threat.

Since the University had not yet fully assessed the extent of the threat, they chose to err on the side of safety.

Land said the best way to avoid this unrest is constant contact and updates, even if nothing has changed.

Because that event took place during off-hours, Land said it was easier to simply lock students into dorms and apartments.

There was no need to worry about locking lecture halls.During busy hours, though, no one can lock lecture halls.

“That’s why we try to explicitly tell students to stay put,” Land said.

After the police establish there is no longer a major threat, an IU-Notify will issue an all-clear.

All faculty and students are added via email to IU-Notify, but they are also encouraged by Land to update their cell phone numbers at protect.iu.edu so they can be reached.

IU-Notify can accept parent phone numbers, which is valuable because they are another way of getting in touch with students, Land said.

Students can also help with efforts during emergencies, though Land stressed the importance of not placing oneself in harm’s way to do so.

Through tweeting to IU and using other social media, students can help to track issues from where they are.

“Students can be really helpful in that respect,” Land said.

Williams said that IU’s emergency plan is similar to those implemented at other schools across the nation.

Land said the important thing is student safety.

“I can’t imagine for the students and faculty members in that classroom in particular,” Land said. “It’s fun to compete with Purdue, but at the end of the day, we’re all in this together.”
 
Follow Reporter Amanda Marino on Twitter @amandanmarino.