Vashon Island High School Bomb Threat Turns Out to be a Couple of Chilled Sodas
by Sequoia Gregorich, Law Editor
Today, at about 12pm, the fire alarm went off at Vashon Island High School. Students and teachers were promptly evacuated to the track and field where they awaited further information. The faculty then congregated and conversed out of student earshot. Once the teachers returned, instructions were given to walk to the neighboring McMurray Middle School.
Teachers were instructed not to disclose what the threat was.
Students had never been evacuated to the middle school before, so many felt that something was up. Nervous rumblings started bouncing around as students discussed the possibility of a fire, gas leak, school shooting and more.
Some five hundred students and teachers filed into the McMurray gym. Mr. Rock, the VHS Principal stood on a ladder with a megaphone to finally announce what triggered the evacuation. The crowd was silenced and it was announced that a possible bomb had been found in a student’s locker. The school had called the Bomb Detection Unit and they would determine if the device was, in fact, a bomb.
Students were soon told that school had ended for the day. Buses would arrive shortly or that parents could come pick their student up.
Backpacks and other belongings were to be left in the building, to be picked up the following day.
At 1:00 pm the BDU arrived at VHS, and at 2:00 pm they had departed. The ‘bomb’ was determined to be a car battery generating energy for nothing other than a mini-refrigerator.
An image was posted on West Seattle Blog depicting a miniature fridge with two soda’s resting, complacent, on the bottom shelf.
It was a stressful day for students, faculty, parents and law enforcement, and one that should be ended with a nice, cool soda.
More detailed information will be available in our first published issue of the year, October 12th.