2. "In a perfect world, we would never have to cover a school shooting again. Of all the stories I’ve covered from both the newsroom to the field, these always are the hardest and worst to cover. But the reality is, something will happen again involving teenagers and young adults, and because of this, we’ll see how the next great technology will impact the way we report on these stories." - Kay Jones, AC360 Producer
13. Over 2,000 WSU students were diagnosed with H1N1 WSU does NOT have a mobile alert system Instead, they have a hotline phone number to call in case of emergency WSU Twitter: 206 followers
Columbine MassacreVirginia Tech Shootings - VT AlertsLocal Issues -Foss High School -UW & Lakewood Shooting Manhunt -WSU & H1N1 Epidemic
PAOLOEvent details:Tuesday, April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Columbine, an unincorporated area of Jefferson County, ColoradoTwo senior students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, embarked on a massacre, killing 12 students and one teacher. They also injured 21 other students directly, and three people were injured while attempting to escape. The pair then committed suicide.First time mobile phones played a major role in a school catastrophe.Kay Jones, AC360 producer - Weird as it sounds, the Columbine shootings were really the first school shooting where cell phones played a prominent role. In 1999, beepers and pagers were still a pretty active way of staying in touch with your teenager. Although cell phones were picking up in popularity, they were still not the standard that they are today. However, at Columbine, students were calling in to local news stations to talk about what they were seeing, as they were hiding out from the shooters. Many students and teachers were able to call into 911 from the school and gave accounts of where the shooters were, how many were injured and what they were seeing. I can’t remember the station, but one had to tell the student to get off the phone because there was a fear the shooters would hear her location and come after her.PLAY VIDEO
PAOLOKay Jones, AC360 producer - Almost eight years to the day after Columbine, Virginia Tech saw its campus under fire. This time, camera phones were becoming the big thing, and an alert student emailed his video into CNN’s iReport site that eerily included sounds of gunshots. We were able to verify the pictures and where it came from pretty quickly and get the video on air. It really gave us a sense of terror that many of the students who were near the building where the majority of shootings happened faced. Because of the location, we didn’t have a ton of photos and video coming in early on, so we relied on the video and pictures those on the scene sent to our iReport site. Once again, we saw how technology really changed the way we reported on this story.Event details:April 16, 2007 on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States. In two separate attacks, approximately two hours apart, the perpetrator, Seung-Hui Cho, killed 32 people and wounded many others before committing suicide. The massacre is the deadliest peacetime shooting incident by a single gunman in United States history, on or off a school campus.
JANNAUse of multiple systems simultaneously to ensure notification The Virginia Tech homepage (www.vt.edu)Broadcast e-mails to all vt.edu accountsElectronic message boards in classroomsThe weather/emergency hotline (231-6668)Campus sirens and loudspeakersThe university switchboardVT Phone AlertsVT Desktop AlertsVT Phone Alerts: subscriber-only feature of VT Alerts that allows students/ staff to receive urgent notifications, even if away from your computer or university phoneCircumstances that Activate VT Alerts:When there is a required near term action on the part of the university community such as: Sheltering from a stormCancelling classes on short noticeA dangerous situation on campus that could impinge on personal safety either locally or generally such as a chemical spill, bomb threat, or dangerous personWhen the Virginia Tech Police Department or university administration determines there is an immediate threat to the university community by the presence of certain persons or when the timeliness of the notice may assist in locating an offender