Oh Crap.
The University of Texas has evacuated this morning due to bomb threats.
The latest —
Update 10:46: UT Austin just posted to Twitter: “Time specified in phone threat has passed but we have not yet cleared all buildings. Decision to resume operations&classes will come shortly”
Hundreds of students are standing near the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Brazos Street. Police are telling people to move to the southern side of MLK, and officers and DPS troopers are blocking the entrances to campus in the area.
A UT official told the American-Statesman that the university had received multiple bomb threats to multiple buildings.
North Dakota State University has also received bomb threats this morning, according to news reports.
At 8:35 a.m. the university received a call from a male with a middle eastern accent claiming to have placed bombs all over campus. He said he was with Al Qaeda and these bombs would go off in 90 minutes. President Powers was notified and it was decided to evacuate all of the buildings out of an abundance of caution.
Since when has Al Queda started warning people about their attacks?
1Ugh. I had hoped when a suspect was arrested in the UK for the University of Pittsburgh bomb threats this spring that this sort of thing would be behind us.
2No. 1 UT grad student daughter sent messages to us this morning that she’d slept in and was missing the drama, fortunately. Reminds me of Viet Nam days in college, when bomb threats and evacs were way too common. Crazy people. Way too many crazy people.
3Wonder who didn’t have an assignment ready or wasn’t prepared for a test? Great response by UT.
4We were kept away from Beaver Stadium earlier this week due to a suspicious package. It turned out to be a box of memorabilia sent to the Athletic Dept. by a disgruntled ex-fan but when they refused to accept it (not knowing who or what it was from) the FedEx driver just left it on the ground which turned it into a suspicious package.
I’m just paranoid enough to think that Karl Rove financed the translation of the video into Arabic and posting it on YouTube and he’s rubbing his hands and chortling over the chaos that has ensued. Lee Atwater taught his lessons well.
5Don A,
I KNOW in my heart of hearts and my soul that somewhere, probably Rove or Rovian Minions caused all of this mess – it has RePiggery fingerprints all over it.
6Don A and Eykis–I have been thinking the same thing, that Rover or Mitt is behind the translation.
7How hard would it be to convince the UT campus cops that you have a “Middle Eastern accent”? I would bet good American money I could do it, and I grew up in Midland (same amount of oil, different accent).
8I keep thinking someone wanted to get an early start driving to the away football game in Mississippi.
9