What if it happened at Duke?

Okay, sorry for two blog entries one right after the other about the same event... but this is a different topic.

I work on campus at Duke University, and I was talking with some coworkers this morning about the Virginia Tech shooting, and we were wondering.. what if it happend at Duke?

Virginia Tech, from what I've heard, has a campus wide PA system that went unused during this tragedy.  I know the powers that be at Duke must be contemplating what they would do if something like this happened. 

We have emergency call boxes all over campus, in the parking lots and such - but of course those don't help at all when the tragedy is occuring inside the building.

Like disaster recovery, it's hard to plan for something like this, because you don't think it'll ever happen.

Our building will never be blown up, and there will never be a mass shooting on campus.

Or will there?

Hopefully, people will have learned at the very least that emailing the student body in an emergency situation is not an option.  I mean c'mon.  We know that tech geeks like myself check email every 3 minutes during the day, but I don't think that's common.  If you've got a real emergency situation, there's got to be SOME OTHER PLAN in place to disseminate that information.

Here's an example, on a much smaller scale and not an emergency:

Yesterday, a tree fell part way in the Campus Drive lot, endangering a number of cars in the lot.  The lot is shared by people who work in a variety of locations on campus - mostly in 6-7 buildings right on Campus Drive, but others work down in the Perkins Library or in other locations down on west campus.

These 7 endangered cars needed to be moved... but how to contact their owners?  In theory, Duke Police could contact the vehicles owners by looking up the parking permits in the parking database, and contacting the owners of the vehicles individually.  That never happened though.  My co-worker went out to see if one of the cars was his, and it wasn't.  But he had the sense to write down the licence plate numbers of the other cars and gave them to someine in our office, who emailed everyone the licence plate numbers.

I don't know how it all worked out, but I don't think any cars were damaged.

But it still makes me wonder... what would we do if a tragedy struck?