MCCC is not able to handle communications during an emergency and that has to change.
A fire occurred in the second-floor women’s bathroom of the Liberal Arts building that prompted an evacuation of several hundred students on Thursday, November 14 and the entire event showed how unequipped Mercer is to handle emergency situations.
As soon as the event occurred a message should have been sent out via the college’s MAlert system letting students, faculty and staff know basic information such as: there is a fire in the LA building, it is being contained by firefighters, for safety’s sake no one should enter the building, and anyone with knowledge about the event should contact security.
Instead, nearly five hours passed before an MAlert finally arrived but it said only that classes were canceled in the LA building for the rest of the day due to “unforeseen maintenance repairs.”
By that point, classes were already over.
Slow response time put people at risk of physical harm.
Because people who were in other parts of the campus during the initial evacuation received no notification, and side doors to the LA building remained open, many walked right back into a building that was literally on fire.
The fire alarms went off at 1:50 p.m. and security guards were finally escorting faculty and staff out of their offices on the first floor by 4 p.m.
To be clear, the burden should not have been on our security force to instantly secure an entire building with numerous entrances and exits. The administration needed to alert the community so that security could do their job.
The wording of the message that finally did go out is just as problematic as how long it took to send it.
The phrase, “unforeseen maintenance repairs,” was used in the alert instead of the word “fire.” “Unforeseen maintenance repairs” was the term used on the signs put on the doors to the building, and on the college website noting the building closure as well.
In fact, at no point to date has the college used the word “fire” to describe what happened.
Every word in the English language has meaning. There is a significant difference between “unforeseen maintenance repairs” and “fire.”
Relying on euphemisms is not a good PR strategy and saving face shouldn’t take precedence over people’s safety.
To get people out of a building and keep them out, you have to make it clear what is really going on.
Furthermore, that bathroom is busy at 1:50 p.m. and someone might have seen something that could have helped with the investigation into what happened, but there was no notification about who to call or indication that anyone cared if you did have information about the so called “unforeseen maintenance repairs.”
What happens when administration doesn’t keep the campus informed is that information–sometimes inaccurate information–is shared via social media instead. People basically pick stuff up off the street. That is no way to handle an emergency.
The VOICE worked to cover the story quickly and get accurate information out within 24 yours of the event but it wasn’t easy.
We were told of an elaborate procedure for getting MAlerts sent out, one involving prior approval from the PR office and the college president. The president shouldn’t be signing off on telling us the college is on fire.
We were also told that there was a problem with the campus phone systems which is what slowed down the MAlert being sent out. If that’s true then you have another example of the college being unprepared for an emergency. There has to be a backup plan if there’s a problem with the phones.
Next we were told that MAlerts are only sent out when the entire campus is closed which would explain why we basically only ever get them if school is closed for snow. The whole school wasn’t closed because of the fire, but the whole school needed to know to avoid a potential danger on the campus.
Other schools are proactive when there is a problem. They don’t try to cover up what’s going on or make a fire sound like some loose floorboards or a leaky pipe or something.
Mercer’s reaction to campus emergencies is NOT normal and it’s not safe. What if there had been a shooter on campus? What if the blaze had been bigger?
Students, faculty and staff deserve transparency and the truth and it needs to come in a timely manner.
We, the Editorial Board of The College VOICE, call on the college administration to create a reliable, easy to understand plan of action and use it for future emergency situations.
