Miscommunication and Chaos

8:25am- “The morning 03/21/23. At approximately 0825 hours, the Muscatine Joint Emergency Communication Center, received a 911 call from an unknown individual, who reported there was a shooting which had just occurred at the Muscatine High School,” (Muscatine Police Department)

8:30am- An announcement was made that we were on lockdown

8:35am- The Swat team arrived and searched the school

8:50am- The threat was confirmed fake

9:07am- We were released from class to go to second period 

The morning was chaotic, confusing, and scary for the students and staff of MHS. In every case of a perceived active threat, chaos would ensue, but miscommunication at MHS was a huge part of why the event on Monday the 21st was so stressful. 

“The only information I had was the first announcement over the intercom, and the things people were hearing in my class,” said Kathy Degner, a history teacher at MHS. 

At first there was very limited amount of information being told to the students and staff because nobody really knew what was going on. The school was acting on behalf of the information and guidance of the SWAT personnel. The school wanted to make sure they had the right information before making announcements over the intercom - which, when possible, is the relied upon communication channel during a lockdown.

Ultimately, the miscommunication was stemming from the misinformation being spread via social media. Misinformation is when people share inaccurate information. These rumors spread fast during the lockdown creating a huge issue because nobody knew what was true or not, for both people inside the school and outside. 

“It was good that people were aware of the situation, but the issue was nobody knew the true story so false information was being spread. It's great that people can get information that quickly, but that can cause some issues when they might be reading just a rumor,” said Kathy Degner. 

In this type of situation communication is the most important. If there isn't good communication bad things can happen. Even though this wasn't an actual threat it is important to learn from this in case something like this happens again. 

“I feel like our generation, especially on social media, believes everything they see. That was an issue during the treat because people were spreading rumors and making the situation more stressful for everybody,” said Cameron Noah, MHS Junior.

The reason why there wasn't good communication, and misinformation being shared was social media, especially Snapchat. This was the center of all of the rumors spreading. People should be encouraged to communicate during times of crisis because good and accurate communication can offer clarity. But in this scenario, what was circulating was misinformation. The student body’s intent was not to create chaos with false information, but even with knowing the postings’ intent. The misinformation made it worse for everyone.