Between 11:30 a.m. and 11:45 a.m. on Tuesday, April 16, fire alarms will go off at Ridgewood Residences as part of a test of the Brandeis Emergency Notification System (BENS) and evacuation drill, according to an email sent on April 9 from Vice President of Campus Operations James Gray.
Students will be required to evacuate from Ridgewood to Spingold Theater. Once the buildings are clear, staff will allow everyone to re-enter Ridgewood, according to the email.
Between 11:30 a.m. and 11:45 a.m. members of the Waltham Police and Fire departments, along with staff from the Department of Community Living (DCL), Public Safety and Emergency Management will supervise the evacuation drill.
At 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday, students will be notified by email and phone about the test. Students will receive an email to their Brandeis address and a text and voicemail to their Brandeis University telephone, which is the phone number registered an a student’s Sage account. These messages will also be sent to a student’s cell phone and to their personal email address, if a student has registered those devices for emergency notifications.
Students can register for BENS through their Sage account. “To receive notifications via text message or a non-Brandeis email address, you must provide us with your mobile phone number, and check the box authorizing Brandeis to send texts and personal email address,” wrote Gray in his email.
Gray emphasized that the alarms are only a test, writing in his email, “Again, this is only a TEST. In the event of a real emergency, these messages would include instructions and information.”
The drill is being coordinated with the Brandeis Public Safety Department, Emergency Management, Information Technology Services, the Office of Communications and DCL.
BENS provides emergency alerts, severe weather delays and closure notifications to the Brandeis community. For more information and instructions on registration, students should go to go.brandeis.edu/alerts.
A week prior to the notification of the emergency drill, Gray sent out another email encouraging students to register for BENS. This earlier email did not mention the drill.
