From: Dan Nelson
Senior Assistant to the President
Co-Chair, Emergency Planning Committee
To: The Dartmouth Community
Subject: Nov. 12 Test of “DartAlert” Emergency Notification System
As part of its overall emergency preparedness planning, the College is in the process of implementing a new system to enhance its ability to notify the campus community of any campus-wide emergency.
Through MIR3, a private firm, Dartmouth now has the ability to send emergency notification messages to College-owned telephone extensions within the 646 exchange as well 650 numbers administered by Dartmouth Medical School that are on the Dartmouth campus. We can also email emergency notices to all undergraduate and graduate students as well as all faculty and staff in the Dartmouth Name Directory (DND) — meaning all who have a BlitzMail account.
This system will eventually enable us to send emergency notification messages through various other communication devices as well.
We are in the first phase of implementing this system. As part of the implementation, Dartmouth will conduct the first test of the new system during the afternoon of Wednesday, Nov. 12, at a time to be determined. As we near that date, Dartmouth Daily Update will carry reminders about the test.
During the test, the system will send a short, automated message to all student, faculty and staff Blitz accounts as well as to College telephones that begin with exchange numbers 646 or 650. The message will make clear that this is a test.
We recommend that from 1-5 p.m. on Nov. 12, you make any necessary, non-emergency phone calls using cell phones or other non-Dartmouth-administered telephones. (NOTE: There will be no delay in emergency 911 calls. Priority will be given to callers dialing 911 in an emergency.)
We ask this because, for technological reasons, it may take up to two hours to complete both the email and phone portions of this first test, as we explore the capabilities of the system, make multiple attempts to reach phone numbers that do not answer our first call and deal with any “bugs.”
All this makes it quite likely that it will be difficult, for most of the afternoon, to make calls outside the institution using College-owned landlines in the 646 exchange and for people outside the College to call those numbers. (For other technological reasons, this will be less the case with on-campus 650 numbers administered by DMS.)
In the event that an actual campus-wide emergency develops during the test, these same phone numbers and email accounts will receive a different message with brief information about the nature of the emergency and instructions on recommended actions to take.
During the next phases of implementation, the College will provide an online registration page where you can elect to receive notifications through various other communication devices, by providing necessary contact information.
Dartmouth will use this information only for emergency notification and for periodic tests, and will not share with outside parties other than MIR3.
For more detailed information about DartAlert and answers to frequently asked questions, visit http://www.dartmouth.edu/~prepare.
