Emergency siren, alerts ‘human error’

Washington University’s emergency system was accidentally triggered by “human error” at around 10:36 this morning, causing sirens to erroneously sound.

Minutes later, after the emergency sirens had stopped sounding and the all-clear siren had sounded as well, students received WUSTLAlert messages alerting them that the earlier emergency was over and that all was clear.

“It was human error,” a spokesperson from WUPD said. “It was just an accident.”

Chief of Police Don Strom could not be reached for comment.

“Initially I thought it was a fire alarm I guess, but then I realized that it could be anything. I really didn’t know what to think,” sophomore Andrew Schoer said. “By the time I got to the website, the all-clear [audio announcement] came. And so it wasn’t too scary.”

With additional reporting by Sadie Smeck.

Check back Thursday for the full story.