Last Thursday, February 18th several parents of children attending Sebastian Elementary School (Sebastian, FL) learned a valuable lesson about making sure their emergency contact information on file is kept current following the bomb scare that led to a school evacuation. Once the decision was made to evacuate the students and they had a location secured, school administrators sent a message out to parents via their mass notification system that, apparently, some parents never received due to outdated or incorrect information. Needless to say, from a parent’s perspective, receiving this information second hand or seeing it on the news could be very freighting. More details about this incident can be accessed @ http://www.emergencymgmt.com/safety/No-bomb-found-at-Sebastian-Elementary-but-threat-put-plans-notice-system-to-test.html
Mass notification systems are excellent resources that have truly revolutionized the manner in which the general public as well as specific groups (i.e. parents of children in school) receive emergency information. However, they are only as good and as useful as the information that is registered on file with the disseminating authority. All parents reading this are encouraged to take some time over the next couple of weeks to follow up with your child’s school to see how they plan to notify you in the event of an emergency. Some questions to consider include:
• Do they have a mass notification system?
• If so, what modes of notification are available? Voice, text, email, social media, other?
• Do they have your current emergency contact information on file?
• Will they allow you to add a secondary or tertiary contact to the list (i.e. spouse, grandparent, etc.)?
If you are a student, staff or faculty member at UCI you should also verify that your current contact information is correct in order to receive zotALERTS for emergency situations that could occur on campus. This resource can be accessed @ http://www.oit.uci.edu/zotalert/ At this time, the zotALERT mass notification system cannot accommodate the registration of parent information. However, parents of UCI students are strongly encouraged to sign up for alerts via Nixle @ http://nixle.com/University-of-California-Irvine-Police-Department Nixle alerts are typically be sent out shortly following zotALERTS.
Lastly, everybody should make sure they have registered with their local city to receive mass notification alerts for active threats in your area. If you live in Orange County you can simply do this at Alert OC http://bos.ocgov.com/alertoc/alertoc.asp Just select your city of residence and follow the subsequent registration steps. If you live in a city outside of Orange County then you should be able to find out how to do so by visiting your city or county’s homepage or contacting them directly.
We encourage the community to partner with the UC Irvine Police Department to prevent or report crime by calling (949) 824-5223. If you wish to remain Anonymous, call “OC Crime Stoppers” by dialing 855-TIP-OCCS (855-847-6227), text "OCCS" plus your tip to CRIMES (274637), or use the website http://occrimestoppers.org/
Receive updates directly via email by registering at Nixle.com and search for "UC Irvine Police" or text "UCIrvinePD" to 888777 to receive text message alerts only. Standard text messaging rates may apply depending on your calling plan.
UC Irvine Police Department
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