Case Study: University of California, Los Angeles achieves 97% campus reach and sub-5-minute emergency mass notifications with BlackBerry AtHoc

University of California, Los Angeles Deploys AtHoc Networked Crisis Communication

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), a campus of more than 60,000 students, faculty and staff spread across 174 buildings, faced a fragmented set of emergency notification tools (email, phone, AM radio, cable TV, sirens, website) that couldn’t reliably reach everyone. UCLA needed a unified, multi‑channel, secure and redundant system—CAP‑compatible and integrated with internal directories—that could deliver timely alerts to tens of thousands within minutes without relying solely on voluntary subscription.

UCLA deployed AtHoc Enterprise as a web‑based, behind‑the‑firewall solution integrated with campus directories and existing systems (sirens, radio, cable TV, EDIS) with offsite hot failover, allowing authorized staff to trigger alerts from any networked PC. The BruinAlert system delivers messages to phones, SMS, email, desktops and broadcast channels, reduced campuswide notification time to under five minutes, achieved roughly 97% reach in a FEMA report, and earned UCLA the California Emergency Services Association Gold Award.

University of California, Los Angeles

David Burns

Emergency Manager