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Alert Carolina is the Emergency Notification System for the University. This system is used to send four types of messages: Emergency Warnings, Crime Alert, Informational messages and Adverse Conditions messages. Alert Carolina uses a variety of tools to communicate with the University depending on the type of message issued. These methods include:

Emergency Warnings

Emergency Warnings are sent when there is a significant emergency or dangerous situation occurring that poses an immediate threat to health or safety on campus. UNC Police or officials in Environment, Health and Safety or Emergency Management and Planning are typically responsible for confirming the presence of an emergency. They may do so through information gathered on scene, multiple calls to UNC-Chapel Hill’s 911 dispatch center, or confirmation from the National Weather Service. Once the emergency has been confirmed, the University will immediately send an emergency notification to the entire campus community, including those at the Kenan-Flagler Business School Charlotte Campus and the Institute of Marine Sciences in Morehead City. The University will, without delay and considering the safety of the community, determine the content of the notification and activate the notification system. However, if in the professional judgment of responsible authorities issuing an emergency notification would compromise efforts to assist a victim or to contain, respond to or otherwise mitigate the emergency, the notification may be delayed. In those cases, the University’s chief of police, or the ranking UNC Police officer in charge during their absence, will be notified and once the potentially compromising situation has been addressed the emergency notification will be issued immediately.

Crime Alerts

UNC Police will issue a Crime Alert when a Clery Act crime occurring on Clery geography has been reported and that crime poses a serious or continuing danger to the campus community. The Crime Alert will be issued as soon as the pertinent information is available so people can protect themselves and/or their property from similar crimes. If UNC Police believes issuing a Crime Alert would compromise efforts to assist a victim or effectively investigate the crime, they may decline to issue the Crime Alert or delay doing so until the potentially compromising situation has been addressed.

Depending on the situation, Crime Alerts are sent via text message to the cellphone numbers registered by students, faculty and staff in the online campus directory, email to University email accounts, push notifications to the Carolina Ready app, the Alert Carolina website, and the University’s homepage, which triggers updates on official UNC-Chapel Hill X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook accounts, including those for UNC Police, allowing stakeholders in the community to also access pertinent information in an emergency.

Informational messages are sent to the campus community to make them aware of situations that do not meet the criteria for a Crime Alert but would otherwise be of interest to the University community. They may also be issued as updates to previously issued Crime Alerts or Emergency Warnings. Examples of situations that may result in the distribution of an informational message are when a crime or incident occurs outside of the University’s Clery geography or when an incident occurs that is not a Clery qualifying crime but is nevertheless a safety concern.
All students and employees are automatically enrolled to receive email messages from Alert Carolina via their University provided email account. Only students, faculty and staff at the University may sign up for text messages. To sign up for text messages, visit the Onyen Account website, select the ‘Update Alert Carolina Number’ box, and add a phone number or update the phone number provided. Students and employees are also reminded to register or update their phone number when updating their Onyen password. All phone numbers provided will be treated as confidential information. Anyone may visit and/or follow the Alert Carolina and UNC -Chapel Hill websites, as well as the Alert Carolina, UNC-Chapel Hill, and UNC Police X accounts and the UNC-Chapel Hill and UNC Police Facebook accounts for information about alerts. The Carolina Ready Safety App is available for download on both the Apple and Android app stores.
Conducting training and exercises is an essential step in improving the University’s ability to activate its emergency notification system and ensure that equipment and procedures are maintained in a constant state of readiness. Emergency Management and Planning conducted mandatory tabletop training exercises with the University’s emergency management officials. This training focused on the Emergency Operations Plan, Emergency Operations Center and incident management software.

The University also conducted two siren tests that were announced to the campus community via email, social media posts and the Alert Carolina messaging system in advance of each test. The emails sent to the campus community also contained information about the University’s emergency response and evacuation procedures. The University conducts after-action reviews of all emergency management exercises. All after-action reviews include, but are not limited to, a description of the exercise, the date, time, whether it was announced or unannounced, and voluntary feedback from participating members. The University also coordinates closely with the UNC System Office to fully participate in emergency preparedness activities and work being coordinated across the UNC System.

Emergency Management and Planning is responsible for maintaining the University’s emergency plans, including Building Emergency Action Plans and the University’s Emergency Operations Plan. More information on campus preparedness can be found on the Carolina Ready website.

Environment, Health and Safety is responsible for maintaining evacuation plans and procedures. More information on evacuation procedures can be found on the EHS website.