New siren system to quickly alert the Troy campus during an emergency situation

From 11 a.m. to noon on Wednesday, July 8, 2009, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will perform its first test of a new emergency siren system. The system is part of the Institute’s comprehensive emergency communications system, known as RPIAlert.

The siren includes sets of speakers atop four buildings around the Troy campus of Rensselaer, including the Folsom Library, the Rensselaer Union, the ’86 Field, and the Houston Fieldhouse. These speaker locations were planned to provide maximum audible reach across the campus.

The siren system will be used during emergency situations on the Troy campus. Use of the system will be limited to times when a life-threatening situation is known or highly suspected on the campus. The system will produce an audible siren followed by a voice message to the campus community and the neighboring community during an emergency situation on the campus.

 “The system will provide information quickly to the community and could save lives in an emergency,” said the Director of Emergency Management at Rensselaer Stephen Abrams. “It is the most recent addition to the comprehensive RPIAlert communication system, which has greatly increased our ability to communicate quickly with the campus during an emergency and improves our already robust emergency preparedness technology and procedures at Rensselaer.”

Rensselaer will work to limit the amount of noise during the initial testing period. “We have reached out formally to the City of Troy, and we are informing our other partners and neighbors in the community of the system and the test,” said Abrams. “It is important to keep the city involved in our safety efforts and our surrounding community aware of what is occurring here at Rensselaer.” 

The system reach and clarity will be monitored by Rensselaer during the system test. A formal system-wide testing schedule will be developed after the completion and evaluation of this initial testing. 

With the installation of the siren system, the RPIAlert system now includes the siren, an emergency Web site (alert.rpi.edu) for communicating with the campus during an emergency, and a comprehensive emergency messaging system that can send voice mails, e-mails, and text messages to the Rensselaer community during an emergency.

More information on the siren and the RPIAlert system can be found at http://alert.rpi.edu.  During an emergency, this will be the primary source of information for the Rensselaer community, the media, and neighbors in the community.