By Kristen Kirtley, Assistant Editor
The first day of fall classes weren’t the only thing that took place on Aug.14.
Due to an emergency situation, the campus was forced to go into lockdown that same afternoon. Kelsey Martin, the director of marketing and university relations at Northwestern, was in President Hannaford’s office when Hannaford received a call that led to the decision to lockdown campus until the potential threat was resolved.
Immediately after receiving the news of the lockdown, Martin ran to her office and began the lockdown procedures that she is responsible for.
“In a situation like this, my involvement is strictly messaging and handling media,” Martin said.
The call was received by Hannaford around 2:20 p.m., and the first initial emails and texts went out around 2:25 p.m. Students, employees and anyone who is associated with Northwestern receive the text message alerts when they go out. Martin said the text message alert system is not only the most convenient, but also the quickest way to alert everyone.
During situations like this, a separate email is also sent out and all social media platforms are covered to ensure the message gets received.
The attempt at kidnapping occurred in the state of Mississippi, not in the town of Alva. The specific agency that was dealing with the case was tracking the suspect’s phone when they noticed a ping by McKeever, which is the historic school house on the Alva campus.
Martin said a description of the suspect and the suspect’s vehicle was given and every parking lot and building in the pinged area was searched.
“Once the phone’s location was off campus and mostly out of town, and everything was searched, we gave the all clear,” Martin said.
Martin also pointed out that pinging gives an area rather than an exact location, so whether the suspect was on campus is unknown and cannot be verified.
Martin said she has a Crisis Communications Plan she has developed for her department that lists what needs to be done in a situation like this. She said she did lots of research about what needs to be included in a Crisis Communications Plan, what was done in the past, and what needs to be improved for success and efficiency in the future.
She said several departments are involved in a situation like this. For example, campus police has its own set of procedures as well.
“We need to give a big shout out to the Alva Police Department, the Woods County Sheriff’s Department and our campus police,” Martin said. “Our chief, Dennis Kilmer, really took the lead on this.”
Martin said that although the situation was frightening, no one was hurt, and the campus will be able to use the situation to improve all their procedures moving forward.