UPDATE: At 10:21 a.m, an Otterbein staff member heard about a bomb threat via social media. The staff member then reported this to both the Westerville and Otterbein police departments, who locked down the science building due to a lack of information on the origin of the threat according to a crime report from Otterbein Police (OPD).
Otterbein students were confronted with a suspected bomb threat on the same day as the Central Ohio disaster response drill. Students took to Twitter to ask if the suspected bomb threat announced by OPD was real or part of the drill.
OPD called for an evacuation of the science building because of a suspected bomb threat. About 20 minutes after the campus-wide alert, police issued an all-clear to resume classes at the science building.
"So we were in class and an OPD officer told us to evacuate the building," said sophomore English literature major Christian Autio. "So we crossed the street and thought it was part of the drill. About 30 minutes later, we were told that it wasn't part of the drill and this was an actual event,"
The portion of Main Street next to the science building was shut down by police. Local Greek houses were told to not use the front door of their houses.
The evacuation confused students as it came in the middle of a central Ohio disaster response drill that Otterbein had announced days earlier. Students were told that the drill was supposed to "not affect day-to-day activities and would only affect those who had volunteered in the drill," according to an email Otterbein sent out earlier this week.
Rumors spread that the surrounding building of Towers Hall was also being evacuated and classes were going to be canceled. These turned out to be false, as the science building was the only one that was confirmed to be evacuated.
Schalischa Petit-De contributed to the editing of this story.
