Virginia Tech students were emailed a warning... Useless. WHERE was the text message warning?

This is ridiculous as well. Absolutely ridiculous…

Link: Students claim they were told of shootings by email | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

The call to police about the first shooting took place at 7.15am yesterday, followed by another call after the second shooting at 9.45am – but the first email warning sent to students from university authorities only came at 9.26am.

The email sent to 36,000 students and staff gave few details. It said: “A shooting incident occurred at West Amber Johnston earlier this morning. Police are on the scene and are investigating. The university community is urged to be cautious and are asked to contact Virginia Tech police if you observe anything suspicious or with information on the case.”

It wasn’t until later, at 9.55am, that a further email, warning students that a gunman was on the loose on the campus, was sent out, according to the university. It read: “A gunman is loose on campus. Stay in buildings until further notice. Stay away from all windows.”

The Universtiy management sent an EMAIL? An email? It’s not like every student is connected to a Blackberry email device. Who the hell is checking their email when there’s gunshots going off all over the place?

Just ridiculous. Email is just about the stupidest medium, apart from using a carrier pigeon, to inform 36,000 people immediately about a critical issue. People don’t check their email religiously. Especially not in the early morning, especially when you’re SAT IN CLASS. Text. Text text text. I don’t know WHAT the University management were thinking.

Every large institution should have some sort of text message update system for it’s key employees/students on campus.