A test earlier this month of the SFU Alerts system, which broadcasts emergency information to the SFU community via text messaging, voice messaging and e-mail, was a huge success.

"Within 15 minutes of sending the test message, 65 per cent of survey responders received the alert on their phone and 86 per cent received the e-mail," says Steve Ray, manager of web strategy.

"Once SFU hits the ‘Send’ button on an emergency message, it is at the mercy of the delivery agencies: phone companies, e-mail servers, or whatever. Inevitably, some people will get a delayed message, or even none at all. But even if you didn’t get a message, chances are someone around you did. And we hope people who do get the message will tell everyone in sight that there is an emergency situation."

Time to update your emergency-contact information? You can find out how at www.sfu.ca/sfualerts.

There were 995 responders to the survey.