Campus Alert Archive

Aggregate Data

Archive Statistics

11,378 verbatim alerts · 12,012 alert messages · 888 institutions · 1969–2026

Two patterns stand out in this collection. First, the calendar is not flat: an even calendar would put about 8% of cases in each month, but January holds 14.5% (1.7× that baseline, in a collection where winter-storm closures and the January–February 2022 bomb-threat wave both run deep), while December, mid-break, holds just 4.8%. Second, verbatim confirmation climbs sharply after 2018: among alerts dated 2018 and later, 95% are word-for-word confirmed as Twitter/X archive recovery and university alert-page indexing finally make exact transmitted text recoverable.

The charts below cover incident type, year, state, institution type, resolution, and Clery category. Above all, they show how much of the archive we have recovered word-for-word. This archive is about the exact wording and the sequence of the messages, not response-time analytics; counts here reflect what is documented and findable, not real-world frequency.

About these numbers

This archive is a limited, AI-assembled sample of campus emergency alerts, not a complete or randomly drawn census. Every chart below describes what has been documented here so far, which is shaped by what sources are publicly findable and what has been added to date. Please read these as patterns within this archive, not as statistically representative measures of US campuses overall, and avoid drawing population-level conclusions from them. Spot something wrong? These numbers are computed from the case records, and every case page carries a “Report a problem” control for filing a correction from the record itself. Know an alert we are missing? You can help expand the archive.

Looking for more than counts? The Dataset page is the archive’s citable landing: versioned downloads, the archive-level citation and codebook, and the collection’s scope and limits.

Tool · Message structure

Message Element Analyzer

Go beyond the counts: see which of the six warning-message elements (source, hazard, location, guidance, time, impact) each verbatim first alert actually includes.

12,012
Alert messages
Verbatim11,378 · 95%
11,378 of 12,012 alert messages (95%) are verbatim-confirmed.
888
Institutions
55
States & Territories

50 states · 4 territories

1.6
Alerts per case

avg messages in a sequence

7,445
Documented Cases

1969–2026

Geographic Coverage

Cases Across All 55 Jurisdictions

50 U.S. states, Washington D.C., and 4 territories, every corner of American higher education.

How to read this: Tile shading shows the cases documented here per state, which tracks collection effort and findability, not per-capita risk or any state's true number of incidents.

55 states & territories documented · stronger blue = more cases · tap any tile to see its cases

AK: 9 casesME: 18 casesWI: 47 casesVT: 11 casesNH: 21 casesWA: 250 casesID: 11 casesMT: 9 casesND: 15 casesMN: 114 casesIL: 198 casesMI: 180 casesNY: 457 casesMA: 259 casesRI: 73 casesOR: 63 casesNV: 10 casesWY: 9 casesSD: 12 casesIA: 161 casesIN: 96 casesOH: 597 casesPA: 507 casesNJ: 91 casesCT: 37 casesCA: 971 casesUT: 56 casesCO: 52 casesNE: 28 casesMO: 110 casesKY: 72 casesWV: 31 casesVA: 177 casesMD: 116 casesDE: 5 casesAZ: 228 casesNM: 16 casesKS: 55 casesAR: 21 casesTN: 74 casesNC: 454 casesSC: 327 casesDC: 149 casesOK: 53 casesLA: 135 casesMS: 46 casesAL: 75 casesGA: 195 casesHI: 23 casesTX: 370 casesFL: 324 casesGU: 1 caseMP: 3 casesAS: 0 casesPR: 18 casesVI: 5 cases
Cases:
None
1-9
10-29
30-59
60+
Documented cases per state/territory
State/TerritoryCases
CA971
OH597
PA507
NY457
NC454
TX370
SC327
FL324
MA259
WA250
AZ228
IL198
GA195
MI180
VA177
IA161
DC149
LA135
MD116
MN114
MO110
IN96
NJ91
AL75
TN74
RI73
KY72
OR63
UT56
KS55
OK53
CO52
WI47
MS46
CT37
WV31
NE28
HI23
AR21
NH21
ME18
PR18
NM16
ND15
SD12
ID11
VT11
NV10
AK9
WY9
MT9
VI5
DE5
MP3
GU1

Incident Breakdown

What Triggers Campus Alerts

Distribution across 40+ incident types: from active shooters to weather emergencies, gas leaks, and public-health crises.

How to read this: This is the mix of incidents we happen to have documented, not how often each type actually occurs on campuses.

Type Distribution

By Incident Type

top 10
  • severe weather950
  • winter storm685
  • robbery570
  • other482
  • weather421
  • burglary389
  • shooting299
  • sexual assault262
  • police activity199
  • assault175

What to notice: shooting-adjacent reports dominate the record. The cases that rewrote alert language live in the Active Shooters chapter.

Top 10 incident types by case count
InstitutionCases
severe weather950
winter storm685
robbery570
other482
weather421
burglary389
shooting299
sexual assault262
police activity199
assault175

Year Trend

Cases by Year

2007–2026
9381,4061,8752007: 620072008: 62009: 320092010: 102011: 1520112012: 192013: 4020132014: 422015: 6620152016: 1302017: 19920172018: 2672019: 31420192020: 2652021: 30820212022: 5532023: 63820232024: 1,1622025: 1,52420252026: 1,875

What to notice: coverage is densest where original alert text still survives online. Browse the most recent cases to read today's alert language, or read the five eras that shaped this curve.

Data for chart: Cases by Year
LabelCount
20076
20086
20093
201010
201115
201219
201340
201442
201566
2016130
2017199
2018267
2019314
2020265
2021308
2022553
2023638
20241,162
20251,524
20261,875

Eras of campus alerting

Five moments explain most of the shape above: two federal laws, one massacre, and two waves of threats that never materialized.

1990

The Clery Act

Campus crime disclosure becomes federal law: colleges must publish crime statistics and warn their communities about ongoing threats. Every timely warning in this archive traces its legal DNA here.

Browse the 1990s →
2007

Virginia Tech and the ENS era

Thirty-two people are killed on April 16, 2007; the first campuswide email arrives more than two hours after the first shootings. The massacre makes mass-notification systems all but universal within two years.

Read the case →
2008

HEOA

The Higher Education Opportunity Act writes emergency notification into federal law: immediate notification upon confirmation of a significant emergency, publicly disclosed procedures, and an annual test.

Browse the policy archive →
2022

The HBCU bomb-threat wave

Dozens of historically Black colleges and universities receive coordinated bomb threats in January and February 2022, many timed to the first day of Black History Month.

See the 2022 HBCU cases →
2023

The swatting era

False active-shooter calls hit campuses at scale, forcing full lockdown responses to threats that turn out not to exist. The archive marks these honestly: resolved as hoax or unfounded, never as non-events.

Browse hoax and unfounded cases →

Institution Lens

Who Files the Most Alerts

Institution type, Clery classification, and incident resolution: three views of the same archive from different regulatory angles.

How to read this: This reflects which institutions and categories are represented in the archive so far; it over-represents some types (such as large universities) and under-represents others.

Institution Type

By Institution Type

  • public r13,016
  • private r11,225
  • community college1,141
  • private r2476
  • hbcu384
  • public masters332
  • public r2294
  • private masters170
  • for profit116
  • private liberal arts110
  • technical college61
  • private bachelors49
  • public bachelors41
  • territory20
  • tribal college8
  • public1
  • military1

What to notice: large publics are over-represented because their alert archives are public and indexed. Browse by institution to find the community colleges, HBCUs, and tribal colleges the archive actively balances toward.

Cases by institution type
InstitutionCases
public r13,016
private r11,225
community college1,141
private r2476
hbcu384
public masters332
public r2294
private masters170
for profit116
private liberal arts110
technical college61
private bachelors49
public bachelors41
territory20
tribal college8
public1
military1

Clery Classification

By Clery Category

2,2783,4174,556emergency notification: 4,556emergen…timely warning: 2,091timely …advisory: 798advisory

What to notice: timely warnings are a genre of their own, composed hours after a crime rather than seconds into one. See the timely-warning chapter.

Data for chart: By Clery Category
LabelCount
emergency notification4,556
timely warning2,091
advisory798

Outcome

By Resolution

1,2631,8942,525resolved: 2,525resolvedunder investigation: 2,095contained: 942contain…confirmed threat: 848all clear: 323all cle…unfounded: 196ongoing: 141ongoingconfirmed hoax: 141unknown: 95unknownarrest: 25unresolved: 20unresol…false alarm: 19arrest made: 12arrest …weather cleared: 10resolved safely: 5resolve…reported: 4suspect apprehended: 3suspect…hoax: 3no explosive found: 2no expl…no impact confirmed: 2

What to notice: many cases documented here as active threats resolved as hoax or unfounded. Read the hoax and unfounded cases for the language of standing down.

Data for chart: By Resolution
LabelCount
resolved2,525
under investigation2,095
contained942
confirmed threat848
all clear323
unfounded196
ongoing141
confirmed hoax141
unknown95
arrest25
unresolved20
false alarm19
arrest made12
weather cleared10
resolved safely5
reported4
suspect apprehended3
hoax3
no explosive found2
no impact confirmed2

Leaders & Patterns

States & Institutions in Focus

Top states by documentation volume, and the 12 most-represented institutions in the archive.

How to read this: 'Top' and 'most' here mean most-documented in this archive, which tracks how findable and well-covered a place is as much as any real-world frequency.

State Volume

Top States by Case Count

top 15 of 55
  • CA971
  • OH597
  • PA507
  • NY457
  • NC454
  • TX370
  • SC327
  • FL324
  • MA259
  • WA250
  • AZ228
  • IL198
  • GA195
  • MI180
  • VA177

What to notice: state volume tracks collection effort as much as risk. The institutions index shows exactly what is documented where.

Top 15 states by number of documented cases
InstitutionCases
CA971
OH597
PA507
NY457
NC454
TX370
SC327
FL324
MA259
WA250
AZ228
IL198
GA195
MI180
VA177

Institution Volume

Most-Represented Institutions

top 12 of 888
  • Ohio State · OH448
  • Pepperdine · CA380
  • Temple · PA241
  • USC · CA222
  • South Carolina · SC204
  • UNC · NC198
  • UW · WA196
  • Syracuse · NY152
  • FSU · FL140
  • Iowa · IA135
  • Columbia · NY128
  • GCU · AZ120

What to notice: repeat appearances usually mean a well-indexed public alert archive, exactly the sources that make word-for-word recovery possible.

Top 12 institutions by number of documented cases, with state and case count.
InstitutionStateCases
Ohio StateOH448
PepperdineCA380
TemplePA241
USCCA222
South CarolinaSC204
UNCNC198
UWWA196
SyracuseNY152
FSUFL140
IowaIA135
ColumbiaNY128
GCUAZ120

Long-Range View

The archive over time

Documented cases span decades. Coverage is densest for recent years, where alert text is easiest to recover.

How to read this: This reflects how findable and well-documented incidents are by era, not real-world frequency.

Long-Range View

Cases by Decade

1969–2026
3,1634,7446,3251960s: 11960s1970s: 11970s1990s: 11990s2000s: 152000s2010s: 1,1022010s2020s: 6,3252020s

What to notice: coverage thins before the SMS era. The chapter narratives trace how alert language evolved decade by decade.

Data for chart: Cases by Decade
LabelCount
1960s1
1970s1
1990s1
2000s15
2010s1,102
2020s6,325

Archive Authenticity

Verbatim Recovery Over Time

Each column is the total alert messages for that incident year, split into verbatim-confirmed (exact transmitted text) and reconstructed (paraphrased from secondary coverage).

How to read this: This tracks our own progress recovering exact alert wording; it is a measure of the archive itself, not a claim about campus alerts in general.

Authenticity Trend

Verbatim Recovery by Year

verbatimreconstructed
7661532229730632011: 15 of 19 verbatim (79%)'112012: 28 of 37 verbatim (76%)'122013: 66 of 79 verbatim (84%)'132014: 60 of 72 verbatim (83%)'142015: 122 of 128 verbatim (95%)'152016: 196 of 202 verbatim (97%)'162017: 376 of 398 verbatim (94%)'172018: 408 of 432 verbatim (94%)'182019: 466 of 478 verbatim (97%)'192020: 344 of 361 verbatim (95%)'202021: 411 of 425 verbatim (97%)'212022: 771 of 808 verbatim (95%)'222023: 923 of 995 verbatim (93%)'232024: 1826 of 2022 verbatim (90%)'242025: 2341 of 2456 verbatim (95%)'252026: 2992 of 3063 verbatim (98%)'26

What to notice: word-for-word recovery is this archive's core work. Browse every verbatim-confirmed case to read the exact transmitted text.

  • 2011: 15 of 19 alert messages verbatim-confirmed (79%).
  • 2012: 28 of 37 alert messages verbatim-confirmed (76%).
  • 2013: 66 of 79 alert messages verbatim-confirmed (84%).
  • 2014: 60 of 72 alert messages verbatim-confirmed (83%).
  • 2015: 122 of 128 alert messages verbatim-confirmed (95%).
  • 2016: 196 of 202 alert messages verbatim-confirmed (97%).
  • 2017: 376 of 398 alert messages verbatim-confirmed (94%).
  • 2018: 408 of 432 alert messages verbatim-confirmed (94%).
  • 2019: 466 of 478 alert messages verbatim-confirmed (97%).
  • 2020: 344 of 361 alert messages verbatim-confirmed (95%).
  • 2021: 411 of 425 alert messages verbatim-confirmed (97%).
  • 2022: 771 of 808 alert messages verbatim-confirmed (95%).
  • 2023: 923 of 995 alert messages verbatim-confirmed (93%).
  • 2024: 1826 of 2022 alert messages verbatim-confirmed (90%).
  • 2025: 2341 of 2456 alert messages verbatim-confirmed (95%).
  • 2026: 2992 of 3063 alert messages verbatim-confirmed (98%).

The verbatim share climbs sharply in recent years as Twitter/X archive recovery and university alert-page indexing make exact wording recoverable. The 2018 inflection point tracks the widespread adoption of social-media alert channels.

Methodology Note

All figures derive from the live data/cases/ directory and recompute at build time. Verbatim confirmation requires a direct source URL; reconstructed alerts are clearly marked. Where a source documents the interval from incident to first alert, that timing is recorded on the case and included in exports. The descriptive counts on this page are plain build-time aggregation; the archive’s cross-corpus analytics layer was built by Claude Fable 5 and is owned today by Claude Fable 5.1.