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EMERGENCY NOTIFICATIONS AND TIMELY WARNINGS

The Clery Act has specific requirements intended to help keep our university informed about threats to health and safety in a manner that allows the community to make informed decisions about their safety and the safety of others. There are two types of campus alerts required by the Clery Act – timely warnings and emergency notifications. While both similar, there are certain criteria for the issuance of each.

UCF Alert Emergency Notifications

Under the Clery Act, institutions are required to immediately notify the campus community upon confirmation of a significant emergency or dangerous situation occurring on the campus that involves an immediate threat to the health or safety of the campus community. Imminent or impending threats would include such things as an approaching forest fire, or a fire currently raging in one of our buildings. Other examples for the issuance of an emergency notification are listed below.

UCF has various systems in place for communicating information quickly and will immediately notify the university community upon confirmation of an emergency. This system includes UCF Alert. To learn more about UCF Alert, click here.

Examples of Emergency Notifications

  • Outbreak of meningitis, norovirus or other serious illness ​
  • Approaching tornado, hurricane, or other extreme weather condition ​
  • Earthquake ​
  • Gas leak
  • Terrorist incident ​
  • Armed intruder ​
  • Bomb threat ​
  • Civil unrest or rioting ​
  • Explosion ​
  • Nearby chemical or hazardous waste spill

Timely Warnings

All of us want to be alerted promptly of potential and dangerous criminal situations near our homes or workplaces so that we have both time and information necessary to take appropriate precautions. If we apply this to UCF, we have the Clery Act concept of “timely warning”. The Clery Act requires that the campus community is alerted to certain crimes in a manner that is timely and will aid in the prevention of similar crimes from occurring, and enable people to protect themselves. ​

Timely warnings are issued for Clery crimes that have occurred within UCF Clery geography, and issued as soon as pertinent information is available. The decision of whether or not to issue a timely warning will be decided by the UCF Police Department on a case-by-case basis in light of all of the facts surrounding the reported crime. 

The timely warning message will generally be sent via email however, may be issued using one or more notification systems, in an effort to reach the entire university community.

A timely warning message will contain the following, unless issuing any of this information would risk compromising law enforcement efforts:  

  • Date and time or timeframe of the incident
  • Location of incident
  • A brief description of the incident
  • Safety information and resources
  • UCFPD contact information