UC Davis will test its WarnMe emergency notification system on Wednesday (Jan. 30), sending alerts by text message and email to all faculty, staff and students, and other people who have registered on their own.

• One test will go out at noon to the Davis campus, the Bodega Marine Laboratory and the Tahoe Environmental Research Center. If you do not receive the test message within a few minutes of noon, please notify the WarnMe administrators by email: warnme@ucdavis.edu.
• The second test will go the Sacramento campus between 1 and 2 p.m. If you do not receive the test message, please send an email to klspurgeon@ucdavis.edu.

This semiannual testing follows on the heels of a breakdown of the system the night of Jan. 10 after the shooting of a Davis police officer three blocks from campus. Due to a technical issue, initial alerts reached only about one-third of the intended audience.

Rave Mobile Safety, which contracts with the campus to provide WarnMe and Aggie Alert messages, took responsibility for the failure and has taken steps to prevent it from happening again. Company representatives met with Chancellor Gary S. May on campus last week; the chancellor had said after the breakdown: “The system failure we saw on January 10 was unacceptable, and we will take all necessary measures to ensure 100 percent performance in the future.”

Verify, add to your contact info

All students and employees are automatically registered to receive alerts through at least their campus email. You can add up to four other contacts: email addresses and phone numbers (including cellphones).

Everyone is encouraged to verify and update their contact information as necessary, on the WarnMe website. Click on the link: “Edit my WarnMe information now!”

Parents and others can sign up to receive notifications through the WarnMe community page. Contractors, vendors and other visitors can subscribe to receive — by text only — the same WarnMe and Aggie Alert messages sent to campus and community subscribers. To register, text UCDALERTS to 67283. These subscribers will all be included in the Jan. 30 tests.

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