Statement by Governor Spitzer Regarding St. John's University Handling of Campus Incident

Statement

STATEMENT BY GOVERNOR SPITZER REGARDING ST. JOHN'S UNIVERSITY HANDLING OF CAMPUS INCIDENT

I commend the administration of St. John's University for effectively activating an innovative text-messaging system when a dangerous situation unfolded on campus yesterday. The alert system notified students and staff of impending danger in a timely and effective manner. I similarly applaud the faculty, staff and students of St. John's who heeded the warning and responded in a responsible and orderly fashion, allowing law enforcement the time to handle the incident. In the wake of the unspeakable tragedy at Virginia Tech, we have a vivid reminder of why a system like this is vitally important. Without the university's effective planning and its community's cooperation, this situation could have concluded quite differently.

Yesterday's incident demonstrated the effectiveness of cutting-edge disaster management technology. Earlier this summer, New York State rolled out similar technology, the New York State All-Hazards Alert and Notification web-based Portal, known as NY-ALERT. NY-ALERT will help state and local governments alert statewide, county or regional audiences of pending events such as storms, natural or man made disasters and terrorist attacks. Throughout the summer the state has been working to bring this important alert capability to the 64 State University of New York (SUNY) campuses and full implementation is expected later this month.

Yesterday NY-Alert was tested when the State Emergency Management Office blasted an e-mail to residents of Oneida County about the potential hazard of an impending tornado. To sign up for NY-ALERT please visit: www.nyalert.gov.

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