On
February 2, 2003 (Ground Hogs Day) I woke up to the sound of the fire
alarm. I heard that the campus sometimes
does random fire drills just to make sure that they obey the rules and regulations. I remember looking at the clock just to see
how early it was…it wasn’t that early, only 10 a.m. It was like my brain shut off and I really
didn’t think clearly on what I should grab just in case we were not allowed to
return to the dorms right away. I
grabbed my phone, keys, my cougar card and my sweatshirt. I went down the four flights of stairs
because we were not allowed to even touch the elevator and went outside. I remember looking for the familiar people
like Megan, Angela, Izzy and Amber. At
this point Lauren was with Johannes and not around a lot. I found Amber and decided to walk to wherever
we were supposed to go with her.
Looking
back at this, lots of people were half naked.
Many people were in their bathrobes, shorts, t-shirts and I believe
there was even a kid in a towel. That
would suck to be in the middle of a shower or on the toilet when the alarm went
off. We were instructed to walk to the REC
center; once we were there we would receive more instructions. Volunteers were handing out blankets for the
people who weren’t fully clothed. We got
to the REC center and put us all in the extra gym. There, they told us that there was a bomb
threat in the Streit-Perham dorm. They
did not know who called it in or if it was a hoax. They were going to take three days to check
every nook and cranny of each room until they declare it safe to enter. Starting with 6th floor of Streit,
they let a group of people in to gather enough things for three days. “You’ve
got ten minutes!” Literally. I was the ninth group of people to go and
gather things.
It was an
experience. They provided food,
beverages, t-shirts, bedding, internet, showers and entertainment while we
lived in the REC center for three days.
Once every dorm room was gone through and declared safe we were allowed
to go back and continue like nothing had happened. Luckily, nothing bomb related was
found. However, some marijuana plants,
tons of alcohol bottles and some interesting sex toys were found in the hunt…
None
of us could really get our school work done.
This was the era of everything had to be typed out on the computer and
we really did not have enough time to spend on going back and forth to the
library to type out papers. Our Gen Ed
111 professor (Amber, Lauren and I shared this class) allowed us to turn in our
research assignment late if we could prove we were bomb threat victims. He told us to write our dorm addresses on the
cover sheet while we turned it in. He
was cool with it and we all did pretty well on the assignment even though we
turned it in a week later than the rest of the class.
The next few days I collected newspapers of the incident and now every Ground Hogs Day I remember how weird this situation was and how funny it is now.
