It has been two years since the Virginia Tech shootings, and nearly a year since the I-Team starting asking tough questions about UNLV's preparation for a potential attack. Hundreds of colleges have a emergency text messaging system in place, and now, so does UNLV.
It looks like the system works just like the school wants, but there is a problem -- students don't know about it, and the ones who do say they don't really care that much. It's a big hurdle for UNLV, but they hope eventually everyone will get the message.
If you take a quick look around, you'll see for college students the message is the medium.
"I don't get so many text messages all the time. I just don't even look at them half the time," said Gianna Zuzolo.
Zuzolo say the texts come so fast and furious that her fingers can't keep up. Now UNLV wants to add more messages to the mix.
UNLV Spokesperson Dave Tonelli says the school is finally ready to roll out its emergency alert text message system, "We've taken a load of budget cuts already, which has reduced our staff, so it has taken us a little bit longer than we would have liked to get the system up and running."
$35,000 and a year and a half later, students, staff and eventually parents will be able to type in a number or email and get texts and voice alerts, "It will read the text of the message into a phone line."
The problem is that most students haven't got the message about getting the message.
Natalia Munoz wants to know about emergencies, maybe just not mixed in with everything else. It's a tug of war, "Email. Don't text me. I don't want the school to have my number."
"We're not sending out advertisements for pizza or something silly," said Tonelli.
"If I knew it was an emergency, I saw something from UNLV, I'd probably look at it," said Zuzolo.
While UNLV gets a certain amount of free messages to send, standard rates still apply for everyone else getting the text. It's a small price to pay for preparedness.
It's going to cost UNLV another $10,000 every year for upkeep for the system. They also want to create a wider system for new sirens, PA systems and electronic billboards. That is still a long ways off and will cost $400,000. The money simply isn't there.
