“ATTENTION, ATTENTION. AN EMERGENCY HAS BEEN REPORTED. LEAVE THE BUILDING IMMEDITATLY AND DO NOT TAKE THE ELEVATORS. ATTENTION, ATTENTION.”
Oh and good morning to you too strange box on our wall yelling at us. My roommate and I exchange glances and then look at the clock, 3:30am. You have got to be kidding me. We throw on sweatshirts and shoes and follow the herd down 19 floors of stairs. As we reach the ground level, I follow the crowd; we are headed outside and I have shorts and froggy slippers on. Real mature Mavis, now everyone is going to judge you. Believe me, no judging occurred as people rolled out of beds in bathrobes and I even saw a guy with one sock on his right foot. As we were brought through Posvar and then David Lawerence, exchanges between friends went from angry to scared. What was happening and more importantly, why hadn’t we received an ENS text?
All the officials told us was this wasn’t a drill and to find a spot in the building. Most people just found a seat in a classroom and turned it into a bed for 2 ½ hours while others tried to be adventurous and head out to 7-11 or Dunkin Donuts for some early morning snacks. I decided to stay seated and play games on my phone in the auditorium, which then turned into a Hangman game central and a karaoke scene. If there is one thing I can say is that when put in the worst situations, freshman always try to see a light at the end of the tunnel. In the end, we decided to try and get #PittBombThreat/#PittsTheBomb trending on Twitter and we succeeded.
We were then told at 6am that we could re-enter Towers, which turned into a mob scene on Forbes but with a little elbow grease and shove, the crowd soon dwindled down to a line to get through the door. Instead of having to swipe every ID in, RAs recognized their residents and they were allowed in the door.
Overall, this super unpleasant wake up call turned into a well-organized routine. The main reason most of the students were scared was that this one came to close to home, literally. So let’s stick together and keep our ears open as we walk around campus to try to and crack down on these bomb threats.
If you hear any information contact Pitt officials immediately. The University of Pittsburgh is offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone responsible for the recent bomb threats on the University of Pittsburgh campus in Oakland.