A temporary wire, running from the roof of Old Main to a fire alarm panel on the first floor, has been installed after an emergency alert malfunction caused alarms to start sounding around 1 a.m. April 12.

The malfunction affected EIU’s emergency notification system and triggered an alarm in numerous university buildings and residence halls that lasted for almost three hours.

The alarm on several floors of Andrews Hall continued to sound for about three more hours after the system in other residence halls had been silenced, stopping sometime after 7 a.m.

The issue was caused by a broken wire, said Interim Director of Facilities Planning and Management Eric Wahls.

The Daily Eastern News contacted Wahls on the day after the incident, but he said he wanted to
wait until he had more information. Wahls was first available for an interview April 20.

On April 12, on-call electricians were notified of the issue at 1:39 a.m., and an electrician was on campus by 1:50 a.m., said Wahls.

Electricians spent several hours attempting to find the cause of the issue, thinking that doing so would be the easiest way to silence the false alarm. When they were unable to find the cause, electricians went to each building to silence the alarms one at a time, Vice President for Business Affairs Matt Bierman said on April 20.

Residence halls impacted by the false alarm include Lincoln, Stevenson, Powell-Norton, Taylor, Thomas, Andrews and Lawson halls, said Interim Executive Director of Housing and Dining Jeremy Alexander on April 21.

Junior history major Reese York, who lives in Stevenson Hall, said she and her friends came back from a movie and found the alarms in the building were going off.

She said some people went to the lobby to try and figure out what was happening.

“Everybody was pretty frustrated about it and just felt confused, and nobody really knew what to do,” York said. “The RAs were all confused. Nobody was communicating with them really.”

She said there was a speaker in her dorm room that broadcasted the continuous alarm, but she was still able to sleep.

“I went upstairs and the alarm was going off right by my bed, but I am a pretty heavy sleeper, so I just laid down and went to bed,” York said.

Graduate student Rachel Wisner, who also lives in Stevenson Hall, was with her fiancé when the alarm started to blare.

“He was right next to the alarm, so it was literally blaring in his ear,” Wisner said.

They decided to spend the night at his apartment in University Court. The alarms were not sounding at University Court when she arrived there, but the sound could be heard coming from Andrews Hall, said Wisner.

Alexander said the alarms in the Triad, Pemberton Hall, University Court and Greek Court did not sound.

Where it did sound, the alarm alternated between a siren and a spoken voice that said there was a severe weather alert and told building occupants to find shelter.

The alarm was not silenced campus wide until around 4:30 a.m., said Bierman.

The system does not allow electricians to silence the severe weather alarm everywhere from a central control point, said Bierman.

The reason that the wire failed is still unknown, he said. There was no evidence to suggest that the malfunction was malicious, Wahls said.

Sam Williams, a sophomore economics major, lives in Andrews Hall and said the malfunction was not a good experience.

“It was not what I would expect from a university or institution of this caliber that’s getting this much money from me,” Williams said. “I would expect them to at least have a system that works a bit better than that.”

He said the alarms stopped going off around 4 a.m. on his floor, but he heard from friends that other floors in the building had alarms sounding for longer.

Xavier Brown, a freshman music major living in Andrews, said the alarm on his floor switched to beeping about halfway through the night. Brown said he ended up not sleeping as a result of the malfunction.

Bierman said he was unaware of anecdotal student reports saying Andrews Hall’s alarm speakers beeped continuously. After learning about the reported beeping at Andrews Hall, Wahls said he did not know what caused it.

Bierman said it took too long for the alarms to be silenced.

“That’s a mistake on our part. We shouldn’t have waited so long given the time of night,” Bierman said. “We messed up. We should have silenced alarms faster.”

Confusion within administration leads to multiple explanation emails

On April 13 at 11:17 a.m., students received an email from EIU Communications saying that the university was aware of the malfunction and that the affected systems were being tested.

A second email was sent from housing and dining at 1:43 p.m.

That email said the malfunction had proven more complicated than expected.

“We acknowledge that this message could have been sent sooner and sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this caused,” the email said.

The first email was sent because of a misunderstanding within the communications department, said Director of Marketing and Communications Christy Kilgore on April 21.

“The first [email] was honestly just a communication mistake of someone asking about what should be sent and me interpreting it as ‘send an email,’” Kilgore said.

Kilgore said the first email was sent to all students, including those who weren’t on campus during the incident. To prevent confusion, the email was retracted by the university’s IT department, she said.

The second email was specifically sent to students in dorms that were affected, said Kilgore.

Bierman said the university’s communication process following the incident was inadequate.

“The university made some mistakes, and I take full ownership,” Bierman said. “We should have had better communication to the students much faster than by Monday. Monday was a day too late. Sunday morning there should have been some communication that went to the students,” Bierman said.

He said he met with the university’s executive team twice the week of the malfunction to discuss the incident and the communication breakdowns.

Fire panels activated differently based on age, other factors

Eastern’s emergency notification system is composed of five elements: AlertEIU, siren/public address system, campus-wide email, phone trees and WEIU radio, according to EIU’s website.

The siren on Old Main’s roof can be activated by county emergency services or directly by Eastern. When activated, the siren sends a signal to the fire alarm panel in Old Main.

From there, underground wires interconnect the alarm panels in buildings across campus, Wahls said.

“If one has an error, they’ll send that throughout the other areas of campus as well,” Wahls said.

During the malfunction, the rooftop siren did not activate.

Systems in individual buildings on campus may have reacted to the faulty signal in different ways depending on age and other factors.

“We have a couple different styles of fire panels based upon their age, and I believe all of them of the same vintage responded the same,” Bierman said.

Bierman said there was also a newly replaced fire panel that responded differently. Additionally, some fire panels are not wired through Old Main, so those systems may have responded differently, he said.

Tunnel construction delays permanent fix

Bierman said he couldn’t say for certain whether or not the ongoing construction at Old Main had any impact on the malfunction.

“I don’t have an answer on it yet, so to my knowledge that was not part of the contributing factors, but I can’t say for 100% because I haven’t received that information,” Bierman said.

The wire from the rooftop siren at Old Main goes into a basement area before connecting to the fire panel. Electricians have not been able to enter that basement area due to the ongoing construction, Wahls said.

He said the temporary fix will be replaced with a permanent solution when they can enter the basement.

T.J. Seputis can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected].