Their blue lights can be seen all over campus; stop at one, another is within sight. The blue security poles have been a part of campus for many years.
“They’ve actually been here ever since when I went to school … I actually went to undergrad and grad school here back in the 70’s, and at that time they had a few of them, mainly on the campus areas itself,” Director of Security Steve Woodall said.
Though calls are infrequent, the emergency phones serve other purposes besides emergency assistance.
Students and staff are encouraged to use them if they need someone to jump start their car or unlock a car door.
There are a variety of emergency phones on campus besides the blue poles. Every elevator is equipped with a phone that connects to dispatch and Rice Library and the science center have them in the buildings as well.
Director of Facilities Operations and Planning Steve Helfrich was involved in the installation process of the first blue emergency phones on campus.
“It was probably the mid 80’s that the first blue emergency phones were installed … before that they had red emergency phones on the walls,” Helfrich said.
The red emergency phones connected to security the same way the blue phones do. Once the button is pushed, the phone rings into dispatch and they are alerted to the location of the activated phone. From there, the dispatcher asks what assistance is needed and sends someone out.
“No matter what, we always dispatch an officer to that location to make sure that maybe someone’s not laying on the ground or didn’t actually need assistance,” Woodall said.
According to Helfrich, Evansville Sheet Metal Works, Inc. made the metal casings for the original blue poles.
“Since then we’ve been purchasing them pre-made,” Helfrich said.
Bad weather can have an effect on the functionality of the emergency telephones outside.
“Sometimes water can get through the lines and can cause it to malfunction,” Woodall said.
The phones are checked at least once a month by Sgt. Stephen Rayner who works third shift for USI security.
When an emergency phone is activated, two things happen: the call goes to USI’s dispatcher and the strobe light on top of the pole activates.
“The light is just more of a visual, but when the phone rings in, we already know where it’s coming from without having to look for a light,” Woodall said.
Rayner is in charge of testing the poles to determine if they are working properly or not. According to him, telephone services are notified in the event that the phone itself stops working.
Red warning tags are attached by Rayner to emergency poles that do not have working phones. The pole is also wrapped in a large black trash bag to keep people from attempting to use it.
Telephone services are typically out to fix the phones the morning after the work order is received, Woodall said.
Non-functioning strobes are marked by a yellow warning tag and are replaced by maintenance. Maintenance shouldn’t take longer than two or three days to fix the lights once the work order has been processed, according to Woodall.
Rice Library and the science center have emergency phones within the buildings themselves. The phones are flat with the walls.
According to Woodall, there will possibly be some new signs around these phones to make them known to students and staff.
The new Burdette Park Trail also has six new poles. Security will be patrolling the Burdette side of the trail seven nights a week, 365 nights a year.
They will patrol from the park up to Broadway Avenue. They also patrol from campus up to Broadway Avenue.
“We’ve got 10,700 students and another, say 1,000 employees. Basically, we’re a small city here and so we would just ask everyone to be very observant of what’s going on … it’s like community policing,” Woodall said.