Today is BU Emergency Alert System’s annual test
Faculty, staff, urged to register
Fewer than half of University employees have registered to receive emergency alerts from the BU Alert system, a participation rate the school would like to see increase. Photo by Cydney Scott
This is a test of the BU Emergency Alert System. This is only a test.
Don’t panic if you receive a test-related message from the BU Emergency Alert System tomorrow. Those who are registered with the alert system will receive the message at 10:50 a.m. Federal law requires the test for BU Alert, which sends information during emergencies to students, faculty, and staff via cell phones, landline phones, University email addresses, and pagers. The test will also check the operation of web page banners on the University’s home page, BU Today, and the BU Emergency Management website.
The University encourages more faculty and staff to register with the system as currently just 43.5 percent of the eligible 15,000-plus users have signed up, says Stephen Morash, director of emergency response planning for BU. Staff and faculty may add or update their BU Alert contact information on the BUworks website by going first to Employee Self-Service and from there clicking on Personal Information, and then BU Alert Information.
BU instituted its alert system in 2008 to expedite announcements involving crimes, bad weather, and other instances in which University operations might be disrupted. It is just one facet of BU’s emergency preparedness, which also includes annual drills and publication of alert test procedures.
Comments & Discussion
Boston University moderates comments to facilitate an informed, substantive, civil conversation. Abusive, profane, self-promotional, misleading, incoherent or off-topic comments will be rejected. Moderators are staffed during regular business hours (EST) and can only accept comments written in English. Statistics or facts must include a citation or a link to the citation.