UW-Madison reacted Tuesday to what is now being called the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, as a professor expounded on being on Virginia Tech's campus as tragedy struck, and UW-Madison police and administrators detailed emergency preparedness methods.
Seated in front of a gaggle of media Tuesday evening in Bascom Hall with large cameras pointed toward him, UW-Madison electrical and computer engineering professor Tom Lipo shakily described his experience at Virginia Tech Monday.
""It's been a very emotional time for us and as you can imagine, there was a time when we weren't sure where all the students were, because they were off preparing for their presentations,"" Lipo said, adding none of the students were injured, but some were in different buildings throughout the day during the lockdown.
Lipo, along with two other UW-Madison professors and nine students, was at Virginia Tech to present recent findings and lobby for power-electronics research funding.
Lipo said he was in a conference hall on campus that was a five-minute walk away from Norris Hall, the campus engineering building where Virginia Tech senior Cho Seung-Hui killed 30 people before shooting and killing himself.
Lipo said the campus went on lockdown around 10 a.m. and that the conference attendees were told not to go near any windows. Around 1 p.m., they had to abandon their auditorium so Virginia Tech President Charles Steger could hold a press conference about the shootings.
However, according to Lipo, it was not announced until around 2 p.m. that approximately 22 people had been shot.
""It was incredible to hear something like that—nobody could believe that,"" Lipo said. ""You could hear a pin drop. I just went into my room and meditated. How else can you cope with this?""
Having been to Virginia Tech about 20 times in the last nine years for power-electronics and other engineering research, however, Lipo said he would go back again.
""It's a wonderful school, a wonderful little town,"" he said of Blacksburg, Va. ""The thing that scares me is that if something like that can happen in such a wonderful little town with a great university, it can happen anywhere.""
A UW-Madison media conference earlier Tuesday detailed just how police and administrators can prevent such an incident from occurring here.
To inform students of an emergency, University Communications spokesperson Brian Mattmiller said the university would implement a ""comprehensive approach"" to inform students, faculty and staff of the situation, rather than simply relying on e-mails.
Virginia Tech students received several e-mails Monday, first informing them of a shooting on campus in a dormitory, then two describing the situation as it grew more urgent.
""We would not rely on any one medium or any single way of getting the message out,"" Mattmiller said, adding that forms of communication could include phone trees, broadcasts, e-mails and even text messages.
With regard to UW-Madison's current lack of a formal lockdown system, UWPD Lt. Eric Holen said with over 300 buildings on campus, most of them being older, they would have to be locked manually and then monitored.
""So, you're looking at a huge staffing issue and a huge resource issue,"" Holen said. ""And that is if the lockdown even is the appropriate and logical response to the incident.""
However, Holen said, UW-Madison police are trained to deal with isolated shooters with a special-emergency response system they can use instead of having to call a SWAT team.
Additionally, universities across the UW System reviewed their respective response plans Tuesday morning, after UWPD Chief Sue Riesling convened a teleconference with the police chiefs at all the four-year campuses, according to UW System spokesperson David Giroux.
The conference, Giroux said, was ""to make sure everybody was familiar with their respective response plans and had some level of comfort with that sort of preparedness, so they were prepared to deal with questions from the public, or to deal with any sort of copycat scenario.""
A vigil will be held Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. in 272 Bascom Hall to remember the Virginia Tech victims and their families. UW-Madison Dean of Students Lori Berquam encouraged students to donate to the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund, which will be used to cover things like grief counseling, memorials and other expenses. Students can visit the fund's website at www.vt.edu/tragedy/memorial_fund.php.
