Thankfully, MSU didn’t have to worry too much Thursday evening as the storms rolled through town. I live in Spartan Village and after seeing the TV weather warnings, I realized that if there was a tornado, I would have no clue where to take cover.
At 7:45 p.m., I called the MSU police to inquire where we would go in the event of a tornado. I was put on hold three times with no answer other than to “check the sign on the doors.” But none of the redone apartments in the complex have emergency information signs. I finally gave up at 8:15 p.m. and hung up the phone, and I called back again after being put on hold for 30 minutes!
As though that wasn’t discouraging enough, the text messaging system was worse! The minute I heard of the emergency text messaging system, I signed up. While watching TV with a friend, he had his phone go off with an emergency warning at around 9:05 p.m. I thought mine would go off next, but I finally got my text warning at 10:25 p.m. Disgustingly enough, another friend also got her warning at the same time and when I talked with some of my other friends, only one out of 15 of us received the warning a little after 9 p.m. This was more than an hour after the warnings had been issued!
MSU should be using the money from the frivolous parking tickets they issue to put up emergency warning information for the students and improving their useless text emergency system. Someday, there could be a real emergency and we know that the campus police aren’t even prepared.
Abigail Morris
biochemistry and molecular biology graduate student
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