UNMC and Nebraska Medicine will kick off the launch of UNMC Alert emergency notification system with a test of the med center’s emergency alert system, in conjunction with the National Weather Service Severe Weather Awareness Week and the Nebraska statewide tornado drill.
All employees, faculty, staff and students will receive a tornado warning test alert Wednesday, March 27, at approximately 10 a.m.
In planning for this test of the emergency alert system and the mock drill, individuals and departments should do the following:
- Log in to UNMC Alert prior to the test to verify and update contact information.
- Understand the difference between a tornado watch (be alert as conditions are favorable for tornadoes to form) and a tornado warning (take cover as a tornado has been sighted or radar indicates rotation in the clouds).
- Consult the Emergency Procedures Manual to determine the closest tornado shelter/severe weather safe area.
- Use the drill to practice how to respond in a “real world” event and, afterward, identify opportunities to improve the plan.
- Develop a communication plan for work and for home.
- Make an emergency kit or, if one already exists, check to see if it needs to be updated or replenished.
For the mock drill, UNMC faculty, staff and students will receive an email from UNMCAlert@alerts.unmc.edu, which will appear as UNMC Alert in their inbox. The email may contain a gray box (indicating it’s from an external sender) and will be listed as a non-UNMC email. This is a legitimate email from UNMC Alert and does not need to be reported as suspicious or a phishing attempt. Read how to verify and update contact info for emergency notifications.
After receiving the email, follow the embedded link to complete a survey about the drill and share feedback.
In addition to the email, faculty, staff and students will receive a voice call from 402-559-5100 and a text message from 78015 with a similar message to what appears in the email above.
If someone does not receive the text message, phone call or email as expected, log in to UNMC Alert at this alert system link to verify and update contact information, which is being pulled from Firefly (for faculty and staff) and MyRecords (for students). This UNMC Today article outlines how to do this.
As emergencies arise in the future, faculty, staff and students can expect to receive similar alerts in these modalities depending on the situation.
As a part of this test, UNMC and Nebraska Medicine computers will display a tornado watch crawler message at 9:30 a.m. and a tornado warning crawler message at 10 a.m. Voalte phones will receive a similar alert. This test will be repeated for night shift colleagues on UNMC and Nebraska Medicine computers and Voalte phones only at 7:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. respectively. The evening test will not include email, text and voice call alerts.
The alert message will also be displayed on UNMC digital screens at 10 a.m.