Students at John’s University in New York were warned about a man walking onto the campus with a loaded rifle 16 minutes after he had done so, causing the number of people enrolled in the alert program to more than triple from 2100 to 6,500, out of 20,000 students. The PC Magazine article treats it fairly, although it quotes New York Governor Eliot Spitzer as saying: “In the wake of the unspeakable tragedy at Virginia Tech, we have a vivid reminder of why a system like this is vitally important…Without the university’s effective planning and its community’s cooperation, this situation could have concluded quite differently.” The first alert was sent after the gunman was apprehended, so it’s unlikely the outcome would have been very different. However, it does demonstrate the usefulness of SMS as a mass communication tool, and the main benefit would have been to keep people informed and prevent rumors running riot in the campus.