Vanda Bidwell
Todd Short, new director of emergency planning at the University of Illinois Police Department, holds up a copy of the manuals that detail the school's preparedness plans.
URBANA – Brian Kucic is enrolled in the emergency notification system at the University of Illinois, where he is an administrator at the National Center for Supercomputer Applications.
"Especially in today's environment, you want to be notified if there is a danger," Kucic said.
Kucic's daughter is a student at Northern Illinois University, where Steven Kazmierczak of Champaign shot 21 people, five fatally, before he killed himself on Feb. 14.
"It's a big concern," Kucic said of the need for campus emergency alerts.
The UI continuously practices and revises its emergency plans, including an alert last week regarding a violent threat for Halloween night.
The full story is available in our paid story archive.