UCF’s preparations for potential emergency situations include regular tests of the communication tools that provide critical information to students, staff and faculty members, and the public.

Several of those UCF Alert communication tools will be tested Wednesday, March 8. This semester’s testing is timed with Safe Knight Week, an annual opportunity to learn about self-care, violence prevention and emergency preparedness.

A listing of Safe Knight Week events is here.

In preparation for Wednesday’s Alert testing, students and faculty and staff members are encouraged to log in to myUCF and review their UCF Alert settings to ensure that contact information (email, cell phone number, and mobile provider) is correct.

The emergency communication functions that will be tested Wednesday include:

  • Outdoor sirens, which emit a tone followed by voice instructions, will be tested at noon.
  • The UCF website, www.ucf.edu, will be tested from 1 to 2 p.m. For most of the testing time, the UCF home page will remain active and fully functional with an alert bar at the top of the page. All messages on the alert bar will be marked as tests. A portion of the web site test will involve replacing the regular home page with an entirely text-only home page that may be used during some emergencies. When that text-only page is active, users will not be able to access links typically found on the UCF home page. Although other UCF web pages will not be impacted by the test, users may want to bookmark those pages in advance.
  • A test emergency text and email will be sent around 1 p.m. All members of the UCF community whose UCF Alert contact information is up to date and who have not opted out of receiving emergency messages should receive both.
  • Indoor sirens that emit tones followed by voice instructions will be briefly tested in more than 40 buildings starting at 3 p.m.

    • The UCF Alert testing also will include WUCF-89.9 FM, social media and HEARO emergency radios that the university provides many employees who assist with emergency responses.

    For more information on the UCF Alert emergency communication system, visit www.emergency.ucf.edu/ucfalert.html.