subject: Emergency Text Messages Can Avoid Tragedies [print this page] Since April 16, 2007, whenever children leave for their high school, many parents' hearts skip a bit. Probably, it skips a bit almost every hour until they are back. Most of us may still remember that it was a day the tragedy at Virginia Tech took place.
A gunman 'Cho' went berserk at an early morning hour that day at Virginia Tech killing 32 people including students and faculty members. Surprisingly, this happened in two separate incidents, though the gunman was the same. He initially shot a few students at the West Ambler Johnston Hall and then after almost a couple of hours went to the Norris Hall at Virginia Tech campus to kill professors and students.An Emergency Text Message can Save Lives.
Could this tragedy have been avoided?
The question that obviously comes to mind is that, could this tragedy have been avoided had we adapted an emergency text message service? Could text message solutions like bulk text messaging have saved precious lives?
This topic and other solutions for the safety of children at school were discussed vigorously in the aftermath of the massacre; but still, the debate is yet to be concluded. Rather than concentrating on what had happened and how it could have been avoided; it is better to look out for some effective solution implementation that can avoid such tragedies from happening again.
Mobile marketing to the rescue
Mobile marketing provides a clue to emergency text messages that can serve an effective technical solution at the time of such tragedies or disasters. Emergency text messages cannot eliminate the tragedies, but can certainly stop the death toll from aggravating.
Taking the same gory incident into consideration, the death toll could have been certainly avoided, had there been some mobile marketing technique like emergency text messages in place. Such service can notify students and faculty immediately wherever they are. Time to time it can inform the whereabouts of the assassin, thereby helping the students and the faculty to decide the course of action. It could have warned the students from coming out of their classrooms and falling prey to the brutal killer.
Bulk SMSs, like the ones used in mobile marketing can reach vast targets within a fraction of a second. It does not require any physical contact between a sender and a receiver. Further, the technology is so easy to operate that school children can also send text messages in case of emergency.
It is high time that emergency text messages and bulk SMS is tailored to suit emergency situations. It is information that is crucial in avoiding many ghastly tragedies and disasters.
