AUSTIN, texas — Tens of thousands of people streamed off university campuses in Texas and North Dakota on Friday after telephoned bomb threats prompted officials to warn students and faculty to get away as quickly as possible.
Both campuses eventually were deemed safe and reopened by early afternoon, as authorities worked to determine whether the threats were related.
The University of Texas received a call about 8:35 a.m. from a man claiming to be with al-Qaeda who said he had placed bombs all over the 50,000-student Austin campus, according to University of Texas spokeswoman Rhonda Weldon. He claimed the bombs would go off in 90 minutes. All buildings were evacuated at 9:50 a.m. as a precaution, Weldon said.
The deadline passed without incident, and the university reopened all buildings by noon. Classes were canceled for the rest of the day.
“We are extremely confident that the campus is safe,” said UT President William Powers.
North Dakota State University President Dean Bresciani said 20,000 people were evacuated from his school’s main and downtown campuses in Fargo after the school received a threat. FBI spokesman Kyle Loven said a call that included a “threat of an explosive device” came in about 9:45 a.m. He said the agency was trying to determine whether the two campus threats were related.
NDSU buildings reopened about 1 p.m. and classes were set to resume an hour later, said Bresciani, adding that the campus had been “deemed safe.”
Graduate student Lee Kiedrowski of Dickinson, N.D., said he was walking on campus before 10 a.m. when he got a text message telling him students had been ordered to evacuate within 15 minutes.
“The panic button wasn’t triggered quite immediately,” Kiedrowski said. “But there was definitely the thought that we live in a different world now, and with everything that’s going on with the riots at the U.S. Embassies in the Middle East, your brain just starts moving. You never really know what’s going on.”
In Texas, campus sirens wailed and cellphones pinged with text messages when the alert when out. Students described more confusion than panic as they exited the campus in what one described as an “orderly but tense” manner. Students said they were directed off campus by university staff.
Also Friday, Hiram College in Ohio posted a statement on its website saying it had received a bomb threat Friday afternoon and was taking the threat seriously. Police confirmed the college’s evacuation but decline to provide additional information.
