UT Evacuates Due to Bomb Threat
Moods were tense this morning as the entire University of Texas campus evacuated in response to a bomb threat.
At 8:35 a.m., University officials told the Austin American-Statesman, they received a call from a man with a Middle Eastern accent claiming to be with Al Qaeda. The man said that he had placed bombs all over campus and they would detonate in 90 minutes.
At 9:50 a.m., emergency sirens wailed, and at 9:53 a University-wide text message ordered all students, faculty, and staff to evacuate and “get as far away as possible.”
Campus sidewalks and streets were soon filled with thousands of people walking, biking, or driving away under a light rain. Cell phone service was spotty under a heavy load of thousands of texts and calls.
“Time specified in phone threat has passed but we have not yet cleared all buildings. Decision to resume operations&classes will come shortly,” UT tweeted at 10:45.
A press conference with President Powers and UTPD’s chief of police will take place at noon at the AT&T Center, said Lee Clippard, director of public affairs in the College of Natural Sciences.
Buildings have been cleared for re-entry at noon, but afternoon classes are cancelled. Other campus activities resume at 5 p.m.
A similar threat at North Dakota State University also led that institution to evacuate its campus this morning.
Photo by Ricardo B. Brazziell/Austin American-Statesman
Share this article
![UT Grad Student Films Austin After Dark [Watch]](http://alcalde.texasexes.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/SleepwalkingAustin1.jpg){kind=small}
![Did This Alum Write the Great American Novel? [Podcast]](http://alcalde.texasexes.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/meyercover.jpg){kind=small}
-
pat white: A grandmother of Nine and a retired teacher of 41 years, I want to applaud Nate ...
-
Julie Osterberg Sather: Vince DiNino came to Alexandria, MN to be our band director. I was blessed to le...
-
Carl Schock: This legislation was needed. My suspicion is that many Texas Exes have consisten...
-
Virginia: 76-37-5 !!!! Who cares How BEVO got the name.....UT will always have the fame. ...
-
Rick Cherwitz: Predictable but sad! The Texas Coalition for Excellence in Higher Education put...
7 Comments
Why was the order to evacuate given so late? TEN minutes is not nearly enough time to evacuate a campus of that size and there is no way people could have moved far enough away if this threat had been real. I am very concerned about the late alert!
Clearly they didn’t want to disrupt classes, so they waited for a normal class switch-over time.
You know why our mascot is the Longhorn?
Because the Administration only values us as cattle.
Very glad UT has protocol in place for emergency evacuations of this nature, but it is a little worrisome that it took 75 of the forewarned 90 minutes before the notice to evacuate was given.
I’m wondering the same thing- why did an hour pass before the campus was cleared?
So very glad it was a false alarm…but extremely concerned that the evacuation took place ten minutes before any supposed bombs were about to explode. Is this UT’s way of protecting their students and faculty? If so, then I am thrilled that my grandchildren aren’t students there!
Al-Qaeda does NOT send warnings….they just blow stuff up. This was likely a hoax.
How would you know? Are you with the evil-doers?