As part of the emergency preparedness and campus safety initiative, the Georgia Tech Emergency Notification System (GTENS) communicates emergency situations to the Georgia Tech community. In the event of a serious emergency, this state-of-the-art -system allows the Georgia Tech administration to contact students directly via email, voice, and text messaging, alerting them of important time-sensitive information. GTENS integrates with complementary notification systems to maximum campus coverage. Examples of alerts include severe weather, evacuations and other threatening situations or emergencies. The message will direct students and other campus community members where to go for further information and/or what action to take. Less urgent messages will be sent using the campus advisory email system. Following a warning, the alert system may be used to provide additional messages or an "all clear" announcement.

Student participation in the voice and SMS text messaging component of GTENS, though optional, is strongly encouraged â€" students are always on the go and often away from their email. Parents, we ask that you remind your student to enroll in GTENS and activate the voice and text messaging capability. Students simply need to log on to Passport www.passport.gatech.edu and select "GTENS" to opt in.

At this time, parents are not able to subscribe to GTENS. The influx of phone calls from rightfully concerned parents would disable our communication networks and prevent us from effectively addressing the situation on hand. In the event of an emergency, our number one mission is to secure the campus community.

Students are also encouraged to subscribe to weather updates. Parents may also subscribe to this service that warns of severe weather impacting Georgia Tech’s Atlanta campus. To begin receiving hazardous weather emails, subscribers must send an email to sympa@lists.gatech.edu and include "subscribe gtpd-weatheralerts-public" in the subject line.

As an additional safety notification service, students and parents may also receive crime alerts from the Georgia Tech Police Department regarding recent criminal activity in the area. To receive email notifications, send an email to sympa@lists.gatech.edu and include “subscribe git-crime-alerts” in the subject line.

Students play an important role in emergency preparedness and safety on campus. Although we have a highly trained and dedicated professional police department on campus, we count on individuals in the Tech community to take personal responsibility. Students should immediately report emergency and or suspicious behavior to Georgia Tech Police Department at 404-894-2500.

More information on emergency preparedness can be found on our Web site www.gatech.edu/emergency. Additional safety tips can be found at Georgia Tech Police Safety Tips.