Emergency alert system undergoes testing

The new UD Alert emergency notification system was tested successfully in October, with text and e-mail messages sent to all students and employees, based on contact information in the University’s databases on Sept. 30.

Additional tests of the system are continuing to be conducted, focusing on such aspects as voice mail messages and loudspeaker broadcasts from the campus carillon system. The University community is notified in advance of the tests, and members are asked to read or listen to all test messages they receive and follow the instructions, if any, about replying to them.

In the first test, text messages were sent to the more than 10,000 cell phone numbers in the database and e-mail alerts to more than 27,000 addresses.

“We were very pleased with the results of that test,” James Flatley, chief of Public Safety at the University, says. “The system is ready, should we need to use it.” More than 98 percent of the text messages and more than 96 percent of the e-mail messages were delivered, he says.

Flatley reminds students, faculty and staff that UD Alert will be effective only if all contact information is kept up to date.

Contact information may be updated online at any time. Instructions are available for students at [www.udel.edu/udalertstudent].

UD Alert disseminates important emergency information quickly. It will be used only in a major emergency when there is a clear and credible danger to the University community.