California Lutheran University will be having a fire drill on Oct. 18th.

But this year’s drill presents a new challenge; all of the buildings will be tested at once.

The only buildings excluded are KCLU and the residence halls, which are tested separately, as well as the Early Childhood Center, which is tested once a month per California regulations.

CLU has also added an alert system which allows campus safety to send up to 10,000 messages to all students at CLU.

This includes text messages, phone calls and email.

The drill will be on a Thursday and will last a half hour. It’s an opportunity to see how students will respond to the alert system as well as how the campus would handle an evacuation in a true emergency.

“It’s going to be hectic having all of the buildings let out at once, but I think it’s something that the schools should do. They should know how people will respond if there ever is an emergency,” said Matthew Bowman, a junior living in Mogen.

Students can participate in the alert system by updating their contact information on their MyCLU portal.

“Students forget to do it,” said Fred Miller, director of public safety. “It’s easy. You go to Blackboard, click on the CLU alert tab, and update your info.”

Another feature of the alert system is the banner that shows up on CLU’s website when there are emergencies.

The banners can be used to notify anyone if there is an earthquake, a campus shut down, or a fire.

The banner informs students on what has happened and where they can look to find more information.

CLU officials are also considering using Blackboard’s alert system since it’s something that students use more frequently.

They are also looking into using Facebook and Twitter, which would be something that students might check before their emails.

The potential downfall is that they have to take the initiative and subscribe to those pages.

“I think that the emergency notifications should be on CLU’s website and blackboard,” said Brian Dwyer. “Facebook and Twitter do sound like a good idea, but I think that only a fraction of the student population would actually follow it.”

Classrooms also received an update for emergencies.

On top of an emergency escape route posted in each classroom, there is also a post of where everyone should go during the evacuation and where to stay until further instructions.

“We want to be able to tell (people) where the students are located,” said Miller.

The time of the drill will remain unknown to prevent students from avoiding their classrooms.

Britney Zamora
Staff Writer
Published On Oct. 3, 2012