Improve crisis response time, redundancy

The events that transpired on campus last weekend exposed flaws in Chadron State College’s emergency notification system and lockdown protocols. That is the recurring message that The Eagle staff noticed while reporting this week.

The first thing that we need to question: Why did it take so long for the initial notification email to be sent out to students? It was sent 45 minutes after the administration first received knowledge of the emergency. Not only that, but before students were officially notified, the campus was in lockdown.

Second: How is it that no one from the administration could notify College Relations Director Alex Helmbrecht? If the administration was unable to contact Helmbrecht via cellphone, why didn’t someone go to the Chicoine Events Center to notify him in person?

And if something were to have happened to Helmbrecht, who would be there to take his place and notify students? Was there an alternative communication plan?

When students approached the locked-down dormitories, many were not initially given access, and in some instances, were told to “leave campus.” Where did the administration expect those students to find safe-harbor?

We understand that part of the problem stemmed from technical issues that were beyond the College’s control, but from our observations, response time and redundancy were lacking during the notification process.

While it is fortunate that the ordeal ended safely, we hope that CSC will take away valuable lessons-learned and implement protocols and procedures to notify students in a more timely fashion.