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Students at John’s University in New York recently saw just how well a text message alert system would work. A man had walked onto the campus with a loaded rifle and students were warned just 16 minutes after he arrived. In this case the message actually arrived just after the gunman was caught, however the message would still serve a great purpose. Word of mouth travels fast and a message (even after the capture) would still be beneficial in keeping people informed and help stop the rumors.

“Without the university’s effective planning and its community’s cooperation, this situation could have concluded quite differently,” said New York Governor Eliot Spitzer.

Students must have also found that the SMS alert message system was beneficial because the number of students enrolled went from 2,100 to 6,500 after this incident. While John’s University was a real world situation Purdue University has also recently tested an SMS alert system with over 7,200 recipients.

Read [textually.org]