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Sandra Yi and Marc Giauque reportingA bomb threat forced students to evacuate all seven schools in Wasatch County today. Authorities could not trace the phone call.
The school district took the threat seriously, but it appears to have been a prank because nothing was found. It's still a serious offense, though, and investigators want to find out who the caller was.
Beau Freeman, a student at Rocky Mountain Middle School, said, "I was nervous. I didn't know what was going on. I was just like, ‘I hope we don't get hurt or anything,'"
Classes were cut short for the 4,600 students in the Wasatch County school district.
Another student, Bronson Woolstenhulme, said, "They said when the buses get here and the bell rings, get out of school as fast as you can, it's an emergency."
That emergency stemmed from a phone call to the district office just after noon today. The caller's number was blocked.
Wasatch County School District Superintendent Terry Shoemaker said, "Basically there was a bomb threat. The bomb was gonna go off sometime around 2:00 today. They did not give anymore specifics. They just hung up at that particular point."
The secondary schools were ending for the day, but elementary students were bused to another location for parents to pick up.
As officers searched cars, bomb-sniffing dogs scoured every school building.
Beau Freeman and his friend watched some of the activity. "If it's a joke, then they're probably gonna get in trouble. And I don't know why you'd do that, because it's just not funny," he said.
Nothing was found. That's a relief to parents, but some were concerned that they didn't get a phone call from the district right away. Shannon Broadhead said, "The concern was just that we didn't know where the students were and what was going on, you know. And I wouldn't have known if my daughter hadn't told me."
Superintendent Shoemaker says as policy, the parents weren't notified right away, just in case there were other threats involved. This happened near the end of the school day, so as parents arrived to pick up their kids, they were told where to go. Phone messages have since gone out, explaining what happened and that school will be back in session tomorrow.
E-mail: syi@ksl.com
E-mail: mgiauque@ksl.com
