Today there was a domestic dispute in my neighborhood resulting in a woman being shot and a police barricade surrounding the townhouse. We are still awaiting news of whether the SWAT team has captured the man yet (my daughter just said they were sent in 30 minutes ago) and whether the woman is alright. Hopefully, she is! Right now, I’m checking the status on Washington Post’s Police: Man Barricades Self in Va. Home After Shooting

Beyond the unexpected horror of it all, the thing that struck me is how people have reacted and how they spread the word about the incident. It is a neighborhood full of kids and the first I heard about it was from my sister-in-law via IM who heard about it from her boss who heard about it on WTOP and saw the online news video broadcast. I picked up my cell phone to find my au pair and kids who were heading to the park. While I was picking them up in our car and bringing them home, my husband was reaching out to his brother who was also in our neighborhood. He had already heard about it because Cameron Station had sent out a blast email to the residents who had joined its extranet.

Just a few minutes later, I got a call from our neighbor who has a child in the daycare center down the street from Waples and we were discussing the latest details and whether it was better to keep the kids in lockdown or pick them up. There was a wide variety of information going around at a very rapid speed using all forms of communication. This seemed to be working well to keep everyone informed and protecting their loved ones.

Meanwhile, TC Williams was announcing to its students that they were going to be bused to an alternate location and have a police escort drive them home. My oldest daughter informs me of this after she arrived home on foot because the bus driver somehow did not receive this message and instead dropped them off at the front of the neighborhood, only a few blocks from the ongoing barricade. The police told them to walk through the park to get home, and instead they all cut through the Home Depot parking lot which was actually the safer way to go since it was further away from the incident. They all had cell phones, but didn’t call to be picked up even though I was awaiting the call and our part of the neighborhood had access. This was because they were told that nobody could drive through the neighborhood anyway; which was not true.

So, to get to my point (other than being floored at the lack of coordination in a crisis on the part of the Alexandria school bus system), I think this illustrates how many forms of communication we have these days and how proper advance planning and a variety of dissemination options can provide useful, timely, and accurate information. Whereas, just the opposite can occur if poorly executed or if you are relying on the old-fashioned telephone game.