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Amid bomb threat, UNC's DTH reports from the street

Generally, the news-gathering process goes like this: News breaks, reporters chase after it. Simple enough.

Sunday night, it worked in reverse. News landed on the doorstep of the Daily Tar Heel, UNC Chapel Hill's student newspaper. It came in the form of a bomb threat, now proven to be a hoax, that led campus police to evacuate several campus buildings. One was the student union. That's where the Daily Tar Heel is located. In an instant, the paper's staff had to relocate, in flip-flops and toting laptops, to the sidewalk. That's where editors, reporters and photographers spent several hours keeping their community up to date.

Here's what Allison Nichols, the DTH's editor in chief, told me today about the experience.


So it's late Sunday night and you're hard at work. And then what?

At about 9:20 I got a call from the opinion editor who had gone home from the night. He was in the front of the SU and our office is in the back and he said they were evacuating.

There were police. They had not made it back to our office yet but they were intending to. So I found out there was a bomb threat so I went back and got the staff out.

Were you afraid?

Click "Read More" below for the rest of the interview.

UNC Bomb Threat a Hoax

A bomb threat that forced the late-night evacuation of several buildings around the central UNC Chapel Hill campus has been deemed a hoax.

Here's our coverage, and here's what the university is saying.

Late night bomb threat at UNC

Some excitement late Sunday on the UNC Chapel Hill campus.

Someone called the Orange County 911 line claiming to be on the UNC-CH campus with an explosive device of some sort. The call sent police scurrying.

Several buildings, including two libraries and the student union, were evacuated late Sunday and police armed with shotguns set up a wide perimeter around the center of campus near The Pit, a campus gathering area.

Police with canine units were sweeping the area late Sunday, reported Randy Young, spokesman for UNC police.

As of late Sunday, there had been no explosion or suggestion of violence, and no injuries, Young said.

The evacuations came late, after 9 p.m., and there wasn't much of a scene late into Sunday evening. Most students, it appeared, were already home.

Check back at www.newsobserver.com Monday for any new information as it comes available.

UNC also put out updates on its emergency alert site.

 

 

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