Effective this fall, Washington University will have the ability to send text messages and emails to all students, faculty, staff and parents in an emergency situation.

The free program aims to give the community immediate warnings regarding weather, crime and other safety issues.

The planning to implement the program began last Fall upon request of University Police Chief Don Strom, and was coordinated by several officials.

“We wanted to explore different avenues of distributing emergency information should the need ever arise,” said Director of Telecommunications Bill Orrick. “This was one of the options chosen to be implemented.”

After considering a variety of vendors who provide such modes of communication, the University settled on ClearTXT, a company specializing in mass messaging. All students and faculty e-mail addresses were uploaded to the database. Individuals can finish the process by signing up at www.wustl.cleartxt.com.

“In one simple stroke of creating a message we can send it out to the entire faculty, staff and student population,” said Orrick.

Orrick, Strom, Chancellor Mark Wrighton and his office, Vice Chancellor of Public Affairs M. Fredric Volkmann and his office and the police chief at the Medical School all have the ability to send messages to the public.

The text messaging system is meant to complement the current emergency response plan by referring recipients to existing mechanisms for distributing information.

According to both Bruce Backus of Environmental Health and Safety and Andy Ortstadt of Technology and Information Systems, officials can authorize messages regarding an “imminent or actual danger” like a tornado or gas leak.

Administrators at Virginia Tech came under fire in the aftermath of last April’s shootings for not having such a messaging system in place.

Students, especially those living off campus, have expressed approval of the program.

“It’s not necessarily a bad idea,” said graduate student Sarah Dryden, who lives off campus. “My opinion may be different because I’m a grad student and I’m a little bit more away from everything.”

“It’s a really fast way to access information and it’s no hassle,” said senior Jonathan Gerstenhaber, who lives in Millbrook. “Everybody has a cell phone and it’s basically free. The University didn’t just say, ‘what’s the most expensive thing on the market.’”

In order to receive the messages, members of the community must subscribe to the distribution online.

So far, more than 28,000 people have subscribed to the service, including more than 26,000 wustl.edu addresses.

According to Orrick, the non-wustl.edu addresses are self-registered accounts and he added that most subscribers from now on will probably be parents.

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