Lessons From Virginia Tech: A Disaster Alert System That Works

[Ian David]

Ryan Singel Email 04.18.07 | 2:00 AM

Since 9/11, some security experts have pushed the idea that peer-to-peer alert systems that rely on openness and the crowd can save lives, particularly when centralized communications and decision-making break down.

That argument is back in force following Monday's mass slayings of 32 people at Virginia Tech.

As the carnage unfolded, eyewitnesses IM'd terrifying firsthand accounts to their friends, some of which appeared on blogs and MySpace within minutes of the shootings. Yet students complained that the first official word they heard about a killer on campus came a full two hours after two students were shot to death in a nearby dorm, just as their suspected attacker opened fire again in an academic building on the other side of campus.

"The kids demonstrated that in a disaster, we will use whatever tools are at hand to communicate," says W. David Stephenson, who has been advocating for innovative and collaborative disaster tools since the World Trade Center terror attack. "It adds up to the stark reality that the first incident should have resulted in an immediate lockdown, and the second round of shooting -- unless there's something that hasn't been reported yet -- should never have happened."

<snip>

Why, given the ubiquity of SMS-enabled cell phones and the growing popularity of social networking and communication tools like Twitter and dodgeball.com, did it take so long for news to reach students that class had been canceled and that students should stay in their dorm rooms?

More:
http://www.wired.com/culture/education/news/2007/04/vtech_disaster_alerts

[Wednesdays]

1. That's the one thing we should be talking about...

After ALL the talk about terra, terra, terra...after all the running around by * and co. making everybody paranoid as hell, wouldn't you think they'd put a quick-response system in place for this very type of scenario? What the f*ck is the Department of Homeland Security for, anyway?