Updated 2:08 p.m. The University has announced that all classes and events scheduled to occur on the LSU campus today have been canceled. Several law enforcement agencies and the LSU Police Department are continuing to investigate the campus.
An anonymous bomb threat called into local authorities forced the University to evacuate students and faculty Monday morning.
The “bomb threat toward campus” was called in around 10:30 a.m., according LSUPD spokesman Capt. Corey Lalonde.
The East Baton Rouge Parish 911 Call Center originally received the threat, according to The Advocate.
Anyone with information should contact LSU PD at 225-578-3231.
The LSU Emergency Operations Center is evacuating students without access to vehicles behind Broussard Hall, near West Campus Apartments, and in front of Evangeline Hall, near the Student Union.
Edited to add: A Daily Reveille reporter saw trucks carrying liquid nitrogen tanks being driven through campus shortly after the threat was announced and students started evacuating. Liquid nitrogen could be used to deactivate certain types of bombs.
University computers lit up with “bomb threat” warnings and students received a mass text from the University’s emergency alert system at 11:32 a.m. advising of the threat and urging students to leave campus.
Tensions suddenly ran high in Middleton Library, as computer screens displayed the warning. Students quickly began packing, and the quiet library suddenly burst into nervous chatter.
Maddy Ford, a mass communication sophomore, was in the library when students were alerted.
“I don’t know if it was real, but it was creepy,” she said. “I just felt like I better get out.”
Biology freshman Hunter Tadlock was on the second floor of the library when a student stood up, informing others of the situation.
People began grabbing their belongs to leave, she said.
“It was kinda crazy,” she said. “You hope it’s not real but it was scary.”
Mass communication sophomore Andrew Franzella was in the Cox Auditorium when the warning came in.
“Things became surreal,” he said, about the mass exodus — the auditorium seats about 1,000 students.
The threat to the University comes just four days after hoax bomb threats were called in at University of Texas at Austin and North Dakota State University.
