Iowa School Evacuates Due to Bomb Threat

Schools in Lamoni, IA were evacuated today due to a perceived bomb threat. Although no formal announcement or call was made to parents, a flurry of text messages and a lightening fast whisper campaign worked quickly, and the people in this tiny Iowa town (pop. 2400) were aware of the situation only minutes after the Superintendent of schools had made the decision to evacuate and notify local law enforcement.

High school, middle school, and elementary students cleared their buildings within 10 minutes and were walked to local churches and the Community Center while officials could decide what the next course of action would be.

While parents were grateful that the school had acted so quickly there was some confusion and a bit of panic. Some parents rushed directly to the church their child was in to wait for information and sit with their kids. One parent reported that the kids were fine, having a great time and that some of the church members had come out to prepare lunch.

By approximately 11:30am, office staff had returned to the elementary building. Parents that were still calling for information were relieved to have someone assure them the children were doing well and that the threat had been called off.

As it turns out, the bomb threat was actually a very poorly worded text message advertising stock quotes that showed up on the phone of a custodian at the school. The text was received by many schools in the area..no word yet as to if any other schools were evacuated or not. The superintendent made the decision to play it safe and she contacted police and gave the order to evacuate.

The good news is that school officials chose to act quickly and moved forward taking immediate action to protect students. The school was evacuated in about 10min, not bad, considering there were three buildings to coordinate and the Superintendent is also the elementary principle. One parent said, "Well, I suppose this was a good opportunity for them to use it as a drill."

In an era of instant everything, and a constant borage of violence on TV, this was a day of shock, and then relief for locals. It seemed so unlikely that our school would be targeted for anything, much less a bomb threat. It forced us to remember that violence does not discriminate based on any factor, including the size of the town.

Luckily there was never any real threat to the students or anyone in the school system. The fact that our school needed to be ready to evacuate at a moments notice however, is a sign of the times. We were lucky that this turned out to be a lesson for us and we could use it as a simple practice drill in the unlikely event that a real threat was to present itself in the future.