2021 UF Alert Drill to be Held Nov. 30

GAINESVILLE, FL — The University of Florida will conduct a test of its UF Alert emergency notification system for the Gainesville, UF Health Shands, Lake Nona, and UF Health Jacksonville campuses on Tuesday, Nov. 30, during four different time periods.

Included in Tuesday’s test message will be a link to the UF Alert website http://ufalert.ufl.edu, where UF students, faculty, and staff can learn more about the UF Alert features. Those include the MyUFL emergency contact information screen, which displays the cell phone number indicated to receive an individual’s UF Alerts. It also allows the user to opt into or out of location-based emergency notifications for the UF campus in Gainesville, UF Health Shands Hospital, UF Health Jacksonville and the UF Research and Academic Center at Lake Nona. All users will receive system-wide alerts. Conducting four separate test notifications will allow all personnel to know which UF Alert they are subscribed to and to opt in or opt out of the UF Alerts that do not apply to them.

The text portion of Tuesday’s message will be sent to students, faculty and staff via text messaging, email, UF Alert social media accounts, the UF home page, IP telephones and speakers and the GatorSafe app.

The audio portion of the message will be broadcast to essentially all Cisco IP telephones on the UF campus, as well as outdoor speakers in high-pedestrian-traffic areas, including Farrior Hall, Chemistry/Chemical Biology Building, Constans Theatre and Garage 14 on Gale Lemerand Drive as displayed on the UF Campus Map in the Campus Safety sections. In addition, most academic classrooms and class laboratories on campus include an IP telephone or speaker to receive broadcasted UF Alerts. The audio message may repeat for up to two minutes during the test.

To ensure that they will receive text messages, students, faculty and staff should update their emergency contact information and location preferences in ONE.UF. Updates can be made at ONE.UF by selecting “Directory Profile” and then editing “UF Alerts” settings.

The emergency text messaging system is used only in cases when a threat may affect the university’s campus. In such cases, the UF home page is the official source of university emergency-related information. The UF community can review emergency response and evacuation procedures online at https://emergency.ufl.edu/take-action/ and within the GatorSafe app’s Take Action section.

Anyone may elect to receive UF Alert notifications on a mobile device by downloading the GatorSafe app on the Apple App Store or Google Play store. Learn how at https://publicsafety.ufl.edu/gatorsafe.html.

To learn more about UF Alert, including subscription settings, notification methods, and additional information, visit http://ufalert.ufl.edu.