In a collaborative effort among departments, Penn State officials are now working on a matrix to define when it is necessary to notify students of possible danger on or off campus, a Penn State Police official said.
"We're looking at trigger points," said Steve Abrams, Penn State police emergency management coordinator. "If you cross this threshold, this should happen. So, in fact, when certain things are triggered, we know the best response."
The plan will detail when the university should use communication systems such as PSUTXT, television, radio and e-mail to notify students. It will have to be continuously updated and modified, making it a "living document," Abrams said.
"We have a basic outline already in place," he said. "Some of it you have to go a step further and look at refinements and completions," Abrams added.
PSUTXT is an alert system that allows the university to send mass text message information to subscribers.
The emergency plan will not be released to the public, Abrams said.
"Typically, we just keep a lot of things restricted," he said. "Most emergency plans you don't want to let the bad guys get a hold of."
On Dec. 13, Antonio L. Winkleman, a Cambria County man suspected of murder, was seen near the intersection of Branch Road and South Atherton Street. Police said at the time that Winkleman was possibly armed and "extremely dangerous."
What then led armed Penn State police officers to storm Atherton Hall a few hours after Winkleman eluded police is unclear, Abrams said.
Reports stated that text messages among students spread rumors of Winkleman's whereabouts.
"Basically, that's one of those situations where it got out of control, and people sort of just ran with the story and we ended up sort of on the back end reacting to it," Abrams said. "Who came up with that? We'll never know."
The decision was made not to alert students on campus through PSUTXT because the suspect was not on campus, said Annemarie Mountz, a Penn State spokeswoman.
"We knew he was not on campus; he was not headed to campus ... I think it was someone had heard Atherton and thought it meant Atherton Hall instead of Atherton Street at Branch Road," she said. "It was a misinformation spread by student text-messaging, but there was no emergency, so there was no PSUTXT."
Alerts can be triggered for a number of reasons including power outages or snowstorms, Mountz said.
"Our thinking behind when we send an alert is that they would be sent when situations arise on campus that affect the ability of the campus to perform normally," Mountz said.
Being proactive about notifying students of developing situations is always a concern, Abrams said.
"We want to get you the information as well in advance if that's doable," he said. "But sometimes we just have to react; nobody plans for the Virginia Tech scenario."
Currently, there are 32,000 PSUTXT subscribers, but about 770 subscribers have not validated their subscription, meaning they would not receive text messages, Mountz said.
PSUTXT is an important tool in emergencies, but Mountz stressed that it does not prevent the unthinkable.
"PSUTXT is not the be-all and end-all of emergency communications," she said. "Even the best communications plan in the world is not going to keep people safe [and] is not going to prevent a disturbed person from walking anywhere on campus."
