False Alarms: A growing concern for public safety professionals
According to a recent survey of fire safety professionals, false alarms continue to rank as one of their biggest concerns.
The survey, which was conducted by Campus Safety magazine and the Center for Campus Fire Safety, found that more than one-half of university, hospital and K-12 school district fire protection professionals rated false alarms as one of their top four concerns. At 53%, concern about false alarms was only topped by concerns about fire alarm system maintenance (57%). This year's increase with regard to false alarms represents a six percentage point increase over survey results from 2010.
The growing concern about this issue was again recently reflected in an apparent false alarm at a Houston junior college on January 9th. A man who gave only his first name called 911 about 10 a.m. and said he saw two men with assault rifles at the college's central campus. This prompted the Houston Police to contact the college's security department at which time the campus was shut down for several hours, and faculty and students received alerts about the gunmen.
It's worth noting that not all false emergency alarms are the result of mischief. And neither is the concern limited to fire and police personnel. To illustrate, estimates for the incidence of false alarms have at times run as high as 75% for the Pacific Ocean Tsunami Warning System.
False alarms result in lost productivity for businesses. There's also the cost associated with the response of emergency personnel. Additionally, false alarms clearly create unnecessary stress and panic among the citizenry.
Perhaps most importantly though, false alarms can desensitize the public to emergency alerts. Too many false alarms and people may stop paying attention to emergency alerts altogether. And that could lead to devastating results in terms of loss of life. Understand that and it's easy to see why false alarms remain a critical concern for professionals across the entire spectrum of public safety.
