WWU Implements Public Information and Emergency Response System

Issue 39, Winter 2008

by Rick Nichols

In the wake of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the tragedy at Virginia Tech, Western administrators quickly recognized the need to enhance the university's disaster preparedness strategies with a comprehensive communication tool that could be utilized in the event of natural or man-made disasters, widespread health concerns, and other public safety emergencies. Toward that end, the university is in the process of implementing a new multi-faceted, web-based communication management system for disseminating urgent and critical information.

This new Public Information and Emergency Response (PIER) system provides the university with a wide-ranging set of communication tools in one shared, secure, online platform. The Coast Guard has used PIER for years, where they successfully used it in the Katrina emergency to quickly provide official information updates to people on a number of issues.

PIER will enhance the university's ability to do the following:

• Communicate quickly to all constituents: students, faculty, staff, parents, media, neighbors, legislators, and donors;
• Direct communications to those who are impacted by an incident or disaster;
• Centralize incident information;
• Facilitate response to community queries about emergency events;
• Support communication among incident responders;
• Host Western's home page and University Communications and Environmental Health and Safety web pages off-site in case of a localized disaster.

Administrative Computing Services and ATUS have been working with the Office of University Communications, Environmental Health and Safety, and the Vice President for Business and Financial Affairs office since August to tailor the system to Western's environment and to train a group of key individuals who will be instrumental in using PIER to communicate in the event of an emergency.

PIER provides the university with the ability to notify people via their office, home, or cell phones, including text messaging. Messages can also be sent via email through pre-established mailing lists, and via the web.

Please Update Your Notification Details

Because the fastest emergency notification method is text messaging (also called Short Message Service, SMS), we encourage all students, faculty and staff to provide WWU with their cell phone numbers to receive emergency text messages. To do this, log on to Web4U, then Personal Information, View/Update Addresses and Phone, and Address Change Form. Update your information, especially your cell phone number, and press Update.

Fair warning: unless you have a text messaging plan, any text message sent to you could carry a charge of up to 25 cents per message. We believe this is a small cost to pay for an emergency message. We will test the system periodically but promise not to use this service for anything other than critical emergencies and periodic testing.

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