The sound of the Carolina Alert alarm blaring in our eardrums at 9 a.m. may not be the most welcome sound in the morning, but at least it’s now successfully serving its main purpose: to wake everyone up.
After years of receiving Carolina Alert texts to our phones two days, and sometimes even a week, after an incident occurs, the test done on campus Tuesday reflected a huge improvement in USC’s emergency alert system. The two to seven-minute response time and the small percentage of undeliverable emails and texts was a good sign, and placing alarms in buildings that don’t usually have good cell phone reception is helpful as well. To us, this improvement is a relief. In the case of emergencies, it’s nice to know that we’d know about danger immediately, and not two days later.
However, Carolina Alert still has room to improve. The recent response time is great, but that extra five minutes could mean a lot when it comes to a serious incident on campus, like an active shooter. Carolina Alert could look to streamlining its alerts so that all forms of notification — sirens, emails, text, TV alerts — would be activated at the same time, potentially reducing the response time. In the near future, Carolina Alert plans to expand the in-building alarms, which would further improve the reach.
But for now, we’re glad that the alerts are finally working. Safety should always be a priority, and USC is at last achieving that goal.