FSU Alert's 'Dangerous Situation' tweet turns out to be a false alarm
Tarah Jean
Florida State University’s emergency notification system, FSU Alert, sent a message out on Twitter and Facebook Monday afternoon notifying individuals of a dangerous situation on campus. Ten minutes later, another post was made to address the previous alert as a false alarm.
The original post received over 30 retweets in less than 15 minutes before it was taken down:
“*FSU ALERT!* Dangerous Situation! A dangerous or life-threatening situation exists on the FSU Campus near Westcott and Eppes Hall. Seek shelter now in a room or building until an 'All Clear' has been issued.”
The following post referred to the message as an error and is still up on the alert system’s Twitter and Facebook pages:
A training exercise message mistakenly went out to the FSU Alert social media platforms and was strictly determined to be the university’s emergency management staff training, said FSU spokesperson Amy Farnum-Patronis.
The message was not sent out to any of the system’s primary sources of communication, such as emails, text messages or phone calls.
“Internal protocols are being reviewed to ensure this does not occur in future training sessions,” FSU officials wrote in a Facebook post. “We apologize for the error and for any worry it may have caused.”
Contact Tarah Jean at tjean@tallahassee.com or follow her on twitter @tarahjean_.