In an emergency, sometimes no news can be good news. But University administrators are challenging that mindset with the help of last Thursday’s emergency text messaging test. FirstCall, the University’s emergency text messaging service, reported nearly 1,600 messages failed to deliver, and 158 messages were unaccounted for during the text message test — something Sheri Thompson, IT communications and planning officer, said marked a general improvement compared to prior tests.”Generally, we saw improvement except for in one area,” Thompson said. “We have not ever done a purge of people who are not with LSU. We haven’t cleaned anything out yet. That will hopefully make our data a bit more clean.”Thursday’s message was sent by the LSU Police Department at 9:02 a.m. and was received by 9:10 a.m., according to ITS data. Thompson said the time lapse of eight minutes is an improvement compared to prior tests.”The more devices you have receiving the messages, the longer it’s going to take,” Thompson said. “There’s nothing really instant about instant messages in times of crisis … Most infrastructure are not for text messaging. They’re for phone calls.”The FirstCall system was previously tested Sept. 26.The University switched to FirstCall, a Baton Rouge-based firm, after the company, ClearTXT, stopped providing emergency communications, Thompson said. To sign up for emergency text messages, students must log on to PAWS and select the “Campus Community” option and then the “Emergency Text Message” option.—-Contact Lindsey Meaux at [email protected]