Western Kentucky Now Knows: Emergency Text Messaging System Works

Sometimes, you just can't win. You're danged if you do and danged if you don't.

I'm referring to the incident at Western Kentucky University last week. A 911 call to police claimed that shots had been fired on campus. University officials responded by implementing their text message warning system. The first message said that armed men were on campus. Nineteen minutes later, another message warned that shots had been fired. Both reports turned out to be false. There were a couple of fights, but no one apparently had a gun. Nevertheless, a building was evacuated and classes were canceled for the rest of the day.

The mother of a WKU student heard the early news reports, jumped in her car, and drove an hour or so to Bowling Green, only to discover there never was a safety threat. She was angry at the university for sounding a false alarm.

Meanwhile, at Virginia Tech, the university has been criticized and sued for not responding appropriately to what it felt was a domestic shooting that had no chance of spilling over to the rest of the campus.

Western Kentucky University President Gary Ransdell sent an e-mail message to parents the next day. "We ... live in times where it is difficult to control exaggerated information. We will always take steps to communicate and then sort through what is fact and what is not fact in each situation." (http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200881023046)

That's exactly the right thing to do. Just as you wouldn't ignore a bomb threat or a fire alarm, you shouldn't ignore a 911 report of a shooting. I think WKU took appropriate precautions. If I were the parent of a WKU student, I would feel relieved by the university's action.

While I'm on the subject: What did that Elizabethtown mother hope to accomplish by driving to the school? If I were in college and my mommy was in the paper because she drove to the campus to save me from a gunman, I would surely die of embarrassment.