There was a bomb threat at work today. So my building was locked down, since it’s a University, they took it seriously. I was at the gym when it happened. So, my mode of transportation (my bike) is locked up tight for the night with the supercomputers. My trusty laptop? In my office. With my keys. Luckily my wife works close, she picked me up and toted me home. While waiting for her, I watched as the police streamed by, fire trucks prowled the neighborhood, state patrol cruisers rushed from one spot to the next, helicopters flew over head, and a Girls Gone Wild bus drove around looking for a place to park. Campus life. sigh It makes me feel like a dirty old man sometimes. (See previous discussion of gym for more examples of feeling like a dirty old man)
I just woke up from a nice 45 minute nap. I watered the mud (soon to be grass I hope) a little before that. The weather is beautiful. Could be worse. Could be rainin.
Was yours one of the actual bomb threats (where some dickweed calls up and says "there is a bomb on campus), or one of the ones where someone sees someone carrying a suspicious item which police later determine to be an umbrella or something?
From what the news reports are Someone left a note in one of the buildings. It wasn’t even my building, but they are understandably paranoid this week.
I’m a postal worker, working in the city’s biggest mail facility. I don’t mind the odd bomb threat or two. I’ve been through several dozen of them. Anthrax scares as well. When I was the safety rep, I was actively involved in the things, liaising with the police and fire brigade, and eventually I got to know all the officers’ names. After 2001, we were getting what seemed like one “substance scare” per week.
My bosses loved it too because it meant that they didn’t have to meet productivity levels for the evening. 300 people waiting in the carpark for two hours? Eh, not our problem. Perfect excuse.
So all round, it was a bit of a casual atmosphere whenever we got evacuated. I suppose one day, my complacency will result in bits of me being picked off the ceiling, but until then…
We had kids off school Monday when someone EMAILED a bomb threat against 2 high schools & 2 middle schools. Emailing a bomb threat is like embezzling with a check!
My stepmom works at a hospital that had a bomb scare last week. Someone drove up, left a package in front of the entrance and drove off. After the police were called and surrounding streets closed off the package turned out to be empty, but they’re assuming it was a “trial run” to see how the hospital employees would react.
It’s kinda creepy, but I was a student at UC Berkeley when, within a span of just a few weeks, we had a campus-wide bomb threat (the school’s first; every building was evacuated) and the shooting at Henry’s (a pub 1 block from campus where 33 people–mostly students–were held hostage by a gunman; 1 died, others injured, and the gunman eventually killed by SWAT).
I was there during that period, too. My students were really shaken up.
The only other time I’ve experienced a “bomb threat” was a few years ago when I worked on a Navy base. They made everyone leave, and since there was only one road out, it took forever. The “bomb” turned out to be a box of old computer parts that someone had left outside a building to be trashed.
