Around 9 a.m., students and faculty walking to their classes were alerted over the university’s speakers system of a tornado warning and to take safety precautions.

Thirteen minutes later, a Flash ALERT was sent out explaining the warning was a technical error and there was no tornado reported. 

Following the alert, another alarm warned the campus about a tornado, and shortly after, a Flash ALERT clarified it as another technical error.

Kent State Sergeant Vance Voyles said IT’s routine maintenance on the university’s cables and servers prompted the alert.

“Nothing wrong happened, it was just regular service and maintenance on equipment — found an issue and fixed it,” he said.

Knowing what prompted the warning, IT was able to fix the matter within about 30 minutes.

“By checking the servers on a regular basis, it lets us know if there’s something going on, something needs to be tightened or secured, and that’s what we did,” Voyles said.

Adriana Gasiewski is the general assignment editor. Contact her at [email protected].