Case Study: Spartanburg Community College rapidly alerts 22,000+ students, faculty and staff during severe tornado outbreak with Regroup Mass Notification

Spartanburg Community College - Customer Case Study

Spartanburg Community College, a five‑campus community college in South Carolina with a small IT staff and limited budgets, wanted a fast, simple way to reach students, faculty and staff after the Virginia Tech shooting and signed up with Regroup Mass Notification to provide campus‑wide emergency alerts. That need was put to the test when a system of fast‑moving tornadoes threatened the region and the Central campus, creating an urgent need to notify everyone across multiple devices and locations.

Using the Regroup Mass Notification platform the college activated prebuilt groups and, within 10 minutes, reached more than 22,000 people via email, voice, text and by blasting every campus phone. Buildings and infrastructure were heavily damaged (about nine tornadoes, ~$5.6M in regional damage), but there were no deaths and only minor injuries reported; Spartanburg Community College says it will make no changes to Regroup Mass Notification because it “did exactly what we needed it to do,” while planning additional loudspeakers, digital signage and exit policies to further improve safety.

Spartanburg Community College

Bruce Cannon

Head of Information Technology