Cliburn planned to return to work when he was physically able.

"I'm not a quitter," he said.

Students terrified after hearing shots

Students said they were extremely afraid after the shooting.

"I was waiting for my English class to start. It was five minutes before class and all of a sudden, I heard shots fired and people started rushing in the hallway. A few students even came in to our room seeking shelter and we closed the door and we pushed the table against the door and we were hiding," student Amanda Vasquez said. "You never think this is going to happen to you."

Vasquez said the shots were fired nearby.

"They sounded very close -- the shots. (We heard) five or six gunshots," Vasquez said. "I just ducked under the table as fast as I could and hoped for the best. I saw one of the shooters when he was already under police control."

Some students barricaded themselves in classrooms until they thought everything was safe.

"There were some people crying in the classroom," student Paul Ellis said. "A lot of people were freaking out. Some girl thought she was going to have a panic attack, but she didn't."

"I was doing my homework on the second floor and all you heard were six or seven loud gunshots. (Students) were just running away from the hallway. That's the same thing that I did. People didn't want to cross the hallway because it's open and we didn't know where the shooter was," student Daniel Flores said. "I went to the courtyard and there were people walking around like they didn't know. It wasn't organized."

"Nobody knew what to do," one student said. "I mean, we knew to hide, but that was it. We didn't know who shot who. I know one of the guys in there with me, he saw one of them shoot the other guy. But all I know is that everybody just ran."

A shelter-in-place was ordered at the college, but the campus was evacuated a short time later. The campus was deemed safe by 3:30 p.m. The campus was closed to the public for the rest of the day. Officials said the campus will reopen on Wednesday.

Some students not notified through emergency system

Some students said they were not notified about the shooting,

Ariana Munoz, 19, said she was in Algebra class when a friend texted her about 12:30 p.m. to see if she was OK. Munoz said she and the other 25 students in her class didn't receive an alert.

"Come to find out the shooting wasn't far from me, so I alerted my other class members and I told my professor, who then went and told other professors," Munoz said. "Why is it that nobody from the school came and told us? Why was it that I had to alert the faculty? Why was it that I had to tell everybody?"

Munoz said the professor went about class as if nothing had happened. About 1:10 p.m., roughly 40 minutes after the shooting, Munoz said a police officer knocked on her classroom door and told everyone to evacuate. She said the college did send out an email alert eventually, but she said it was sent after she left campus.

Carpenter said messages were sent out.

"We sent out a text blast to all of our students, emails," Carpenter said. "We have multiple forms by which we communicate with students."

Carpenter said students are able to opt-out of those alerts, but the system is designed to send notifications to every student to their cellphones. However, on Wednesday, KPRC Local 2 learned that students have to opt in, not out, to receive those alerts.

Some students said cellphone service of spotty on campus.

"I had no more cellphone service, but I did have WiFi, which is when I decided to go to Twitter and warn others not to come into the academic building," Vasquez said.

A message was posted on Facebook about 1 p.m. The first posting the college made on its main Twitter account was about 2 p.m. A notice did not appear to have been posted on the North Harris campus' Twitter page at all.

School reopened on Wednesday

Students, their parents and faculty returned to campus on Wednesday.