USC has this emergency alert system, but you probably don’t know about it. Why? Because it’s never fully functional.
At the beginning of each year, students are told to sign up for the Carolina Alert notification system and put in their cell phone numbers on VIP so they can stay updated in emergencies. Many of us do exactly that, but throughout our college careers so far, very few of us have received any text notifications at all. Carolina Alert has also said it would send out e-mails to our school addresses in emergencies.
Last year, a huge tornado blew right through Columbia, and the entire city was put on tornado watch for a couple days. Did we get any personal notifications about it? Nope. Less than a couple of months ago, the whole school shut down because of snow and dangerously icy roads. Did we get any texts or e-mails about it? No. In fact, students were told to wake up at 5 a.m. to check the school website to see if classes were canceled for the day or not. Thanks a lot. Very recently, a mugging occurred right outside of Russell House. Still no texts or e-mails.
And now we only have one question for Carolina Alert: What magnitude of disaster or emergency would need to occur before your dormant system does what it promises to do and properly alerts students? A tsunami, perhaps? Or maybe an 8.9 magnitude earthquake?
Based on Carolina Alert’s history, we probably wouldn’t even be informed if those occurred.
This emergency notification system, like most other large schoolwide systems, costs us a lot of money. And now, Carolina Alert is even planning to expand its services to include electronic alert boxes in each dorm. But we believe it should focus on fixing its existing services before trying to install new ones.
Until we see e-mails and texts, quit wasting our money.