AMY WINKLER

UA security officer Alberto Peral stands guard in front of the CCIT building yesterday afternoon after it was evacuated due to a bomb threat that turned out to be phony. Because UAPD was already at its highest state of readiness, it says it is not taking any additional security measures to protect against explosions that may occur in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Wednesday October 17, 2001

UAPD on highest level of security

Two bomb threat calls that yielded no actual explosives forced CCIT to evacuate its facilities yesterday for nearly two hours while the building was searched.

"We responded today the same way we would have two months ago," he said.

Seastone said two calls were phoned in at approximately 12:45 p.m. The first call warned officials that they needed to get people out of the building. The same caller called minutes later, while the building was being evacuated, and said there was a bomb in the building.

Pete Perona, executive director of the Center for Computer and Information Technology, said the fire alarms were activated, and 200 employees, some of whom were on their lunch break, were evacuated from the building.

CCIT employee Karen Norin said one of her co-workers came into her office and said they needed to leave the building.

"In times like these, you take that seriously," she said.

The area was secured while people waited for a bomb-sniffing dog from the Pima County Sheriff's Department to arrive, but no bomb was found.

Seastone said UAPD is in the process of tracing the call, which they believe came from either a cell phone or a pay phone.

He also said UAPD is not taking any additional precautionary measures in light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, because the security level was already the highest it could be.

Perona said the threat did not have any effect on the university computer system, and equipment ran as usual despite the evacuation.