During our travels last year, we had a few brushes with terrorist activities. We were in Paris for the November 2015 bombings, were in the Istanbul bombing location a few days before it happened, were in Bali when a high alert for imminent terrorist activities was issued for foreigners, and a few other situations which left us feeling a bit unnerved. We avoided certain countries and airports just to play it safe.
So when we returned to our North American digs, there was no longer a need to think of such things.
Tonight I went to my Tuesday night community choir practice as usual. I got there about 40 minutes early to avoid the rush hour traffic, and was relaxing in the open air hallways of the building chilling out, drinking my cold coffee. I heard some older security women scolding some rowdy male students to stop horsing around so much and,”Get out of the building.” But that’s not what was actually happening.
Thirty minutes before class a young woman approaches me and asked, “Is this bomb threat real?” She shows me an email on her phone in micro script, and I tell her I can’t read writing that small, could she read it to me? It said there was a bomb threat on campus and for everyone to leave immediately, classes are cancelled. I’m not signed up for any course, so I never got the email.
I went out the building and there wasn’t a security person around to ask–I guess they’d already left campus. But there were dozens of custodians pushing their carts down the middle of the street, staying away from the buildings. I have to admit, not sure I would be so responsible as to get my cart to safety, probably would have left it in the hallways.
I migrated with the flock of custodians back to the parking garage, which is where all the carts ended up. It took over an hour and a half to get out off campus. Yes, that long. Two days later, they evac’d the campus again, this time for what they thought was an armed gunman. No longer are bomb threats a travel related thing, you can stay domestic. Nothing about that is a good thing.