CLAIRE O’REILLY
Life & Arts Editor
While students and faculty filled Thompson Hall on Tuesday afternoon, an emergency alarm sounded and a voice came over the speakers calling for evacuation. Some never heard the alarm.
“We noticed there were a bunch of people outside of Thompson, and we wondered if there was a fire drill in Rockefeller because, you know, they were in the same area, and we didn’t hear anything . . . ” said senior psychology major Tito Mercado.
Mercado was still sitting in Thompson with his friend, senior psychology major Vinny Noble, as other students and faculty were safely outside of the building. They were unaware there was a bomb threat until their friends started talking about it in a group chat.
“They were like ‘no, it’s a bomb threat actually,’ and I’m like, ‘oh, okay cool. I’ve been here for like 20 minutes,’” said Mercado.
“No one informed us at all,” added Noble.
Even students who did hear the alarm were confused.
“The alert was so quiet,” said senior childhood inclusive education major Miranda Pusateri. “It wasn’t like an alarm; it was just a voice over the speaker saying to evacuate, and we were all [confused] and then we saw a cop in the hallway, so we scurried out.”
The emergency notification email was received by students and faculty at 1:00 p.m., approximately 40 minutes after the alarm sounded. According to Jeff Woodard, director of marketing and communications, there was a glitch in the system.
Marketing and community relations is taking steps to make sure that the glitch doesn’t happen again.
“Immediately after the incident was resolved, ITS made necessary changes to accounts connected to the listservs that are used in such situations. While that specific issue has been fixed, marketing and communications is also working with ITS to look for more efficient programs and to increase frequency of testing of the systems to ensure they are always ready,” said Woodard. “The safety of our students and staff is always our number one concern.”