Campus Central Fire Alarm Monitoring System is not currently dispatching 911 notifications, Duke police discovered Friday.
Although a fire will still trigger the alarms, the Fire Safety Division of the Occupational and Environment Safety Office discovered in a routine maintenance check Friday morning that alarms in buildings across campus will not immediately notify 911 as they should.
In an alert notice sent to the Residence Life and Housing Services emergency listserv Friday evening, the Facilities Management Department informed residents that in the event of a fire, they should immediately evacuate the facility and call 911. Resident assistants were asked to post the alert flyer in their buildings.
“Alerts only come on a Web site that warn the community in case of a dire emergency,” said Gloria Graham, assistant chief of the Duke University Police Department. “This is more of a maintenance issue.”
Fred Knipper, director of the Fire Safety Division said he does not know when the problem will be fixed.
“This is the first time something like this has occurred,” Knipper said. “We’re not sure exactly what’s wrong.”
Knipper said that although most of the alarms in East and West Campus buildings are affected, health system facilities and Central Campus apartments are not.
Knipper added that the safety of campus residents should not be significantly affected by the issue, but the division is still trying to fix the defect in the systems as soon as possible.
“It’s our No. 1 priority right now,” he said. “We have been working on this all weekend, waiting for the corporation to get back to us.”
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.