Correction appended

The flickering lights in Hornbake Library and the dark clouds filling the sky told then-sophomore Jason Volk that something may have been wrong. It was September 2001, minutes before a tornado tore through the campus, killing two students and leaving miles of damage.

Volk, a business undergraduate student at the time, said the librarian didn’t have enough information to warn students, and police had no system to get the word out. Even after the twister passed, it took Volk at least two hours to learn the most destructive natural disaster had ever hit the campus.

In the days that followed, realizing it had taken too long to find out about a highly dangerous situation, Volk thought of a solution: There had to better way to notify students about such an emergency.

Six years later, Volk, now the chief executive officer and founder of Alertus Technologies, is back on the campus after his company secured a contract in 2005 to install emergency notification beacons in more than a dozen of the major buildings on the campus. The system was prototyped by the time Volk graduated with a MBA in 2005.

“This being the information age, it had to be feasible that some device could be developed that could provide specific information out to students in times of emergency,” said Chief Technology Officer Blake Robertson, an alumni who helped develop Alertus after joining the company in 2003. Robertson and Volk each participated in the Hinman CEOs program, which helps entrepeneurs develop and market technologies, and the two met while in the program.

“I, the motivated engineer, met the motivated business student,” Robertson said.

Adding to the cell phone text messages, e-mail alerts and outdoor sirens, the 8-by-10-inch yellow devices with scrolling text alerts display thorough safety information to better inform students how to react in the event of an emergency. Several units have been installed for months, but University Police are now considering expanding the program, and will include Alertus in its monthly tests.

Since marketing their product in 2005, they have sold the emergency notification device to Allegheny County Public Schools, the U.S. Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground, and a military research facility in Harford County, among others.

But universities and colleges are still the core market, Volk said, and the company has seen a surge in interest since the Virginia Tech tragedy last month.

“We’ve had thousands of campuses review our product” since the shootings, Volk said. Of the university officials he’s spoken to, Volk said, “They felt no more prepared than Virginia Tech and they saw this as a way of empowering their campus community to respond in any emergency.”

“A siren won’t tell you the problem,” Robertson added. “[This system] tells you how to respond and what to do.”

Some of the beacons have been installed for months in buildings such as Van Munching Hall, Stamp Student Union, McKeldin Library and several administration buildings. Others were installed last week in dorms like Queen Anne’s Hall and South Campus Commons Building 2, which are part of the pilot program.

To activate the devices, the university’s Public Safety department sends messages through radio technology. The box flashes and loudly beeps as details of the crisis are shown on the screen.

Although last week’s first monthly early warning test was seen as a success, with messages received by the Alertus beacons less than one minute after activation, University Police Maj. Gruber said the university would have to install a beacon on every floor of every building for students to be fully aware of the alerts.

The system has backup battery power in case of electrical outages and can plug into external displays such as plasma screens and scrolling marquees. The costs vary depending on requirements, but ranges from $50,000 to $1 million, depending on the size of the school and other requirments, Volk said.

“It definitely catches your attention,” said Alon Motro, a senior computer science major. “At Virginia Tech nobody knew about the first two shootings, but if this had been there, people would have known.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story contained errors. The story incorrectly described Alertus Technologies’ chief technology officer Blake Robertson’s initial involvement with the company. Alumnus Jason Volk founded the company and initiated research and development on emergency notification beacons while a student here. Alertus’ customers were also identified as Allegheney County high schools. The school system has purchased Alertus’ system for K-12 schools. Several changes were also made to the online edition of the story for clarification purposes.