The Biomedical Library at the University of California San Diego was closed yesterday afternoon and evening due to a bomb threat at the School of Medicine.  Click here for a news report of the incident from SignOnSanDiego.com.

As reported in Savannah Now, there was a bomb threat Monday at Effingham Hospital, located in Springfield, Georgia.  According to the article, all patients were transported to a nearby nursing facility and all staff and visitors were evacuated.  The call was received at 2:30pm and the all-clear was given shortly after 4:00pm.

Our Circulation staff are going through a series of bomb threat drills in order to improve response.  Here’s a message from our Circulation supervisor summarizing this past weekend’s activities:

Starting this past weekend we’ve been running table top bomb threat drills in the Circulation department. And I have to say the results have been very mixed and highly instructive.

 The biggest thing the drills have been pointing out is our need to continue running drills.  It provides good one-on-one opportunities to see how desk staff would react to an unexpected phone call with a bomb threat at the other end.

Basically the drill runs like this:  I phone in (from a phone other than my cell phone) and say:  “Ok…this is your bomb threat drill.  What would you do if I phoned in and said the following…”  and then we proceeded to run the bomb threat interview.

At the end of the phone call we’d review what happened and discuss what we’d do differently.

The results?  Well, let’s just say we’ll be running the drills a little longer to give everyone a chance to learn to improve their bomb threat response skills.

So circ staff…. beware… when you least suspect it that phone is going to ring and there will be another drill coming your way. 

Here’s a link to bomb threat procedures provided by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).  I particularly like the idea of devising a hand signal to your supervisor that a bomb threat has been received.

“Using a pre-arranged signal, notify your supervisor while the call is still ongoing. Your supervisor should contact the local police service.”

Here’s a message from a member of our weekend Circulation staff about an incident that took place last night.  It was an opportunity for us to brush up on our Bomb Threat and Suspicious Behavior procedures.

Hospital Security stopped by the Circulation Desk, and asked that we be on the lookout for any suspicious behavior, or any patron out of the ordinary. The Emergency Room has received a recent bomb threat. There was no request to alert patrons or evacuate, but rather to keep a lookout for anything/anyone unusual, and call them if such criteria was observed.

There was a bomb threat over the weekend at the Provo Hospital in Utah. Here’s an account of the incident.

The bomb threat checklist that we use can be found at UVA’s Critical Incident Management web page.

Our area experienced two school-related bomb threat incidents yesterday; one at a high school and one at a community college.  Today we’ve been discussing how viable our emergency response procedure is for bomb threats.  We borrowed our procedures from UVa’s Critical Incident Management procedure for handling a bomb threat that is received by telephone, and it involves filling out a form while on the phone with the caller before reporting the incident to the authorities.  Does anyone have experience in dealing with bomb threats?  Also, does anyone else have a bomb-threat checklist that they are required to complete?  Here’s our current procedure:

• if you receive a bomb threat over the telephone, remain calm, and refer to the Telephone Checklist for Bomb Threats (following this page)
• try to elicit and compile as much information as possible
• do not try to immediately notify others or evacuate the building, rather focus on trying to gather as much information as possible
• if applicable, check the display on your phone and note the number given for the incoming call
• try to keep the caller on the line as long as possible; do not anger the caller
• while engaging the caller, pay attention to any background noise and distinctive sounds (machinery, traffic, other voices, music, television, etc.)
• note any characteristics of the caller’s voice (gender, age, education, accent, etc.)
• immediately after the caller has ended the call, notify the UVa police at 911.
• if the threat was left on your voice mail, do not erase.
• be aware that should a bomb threat be received in writing, the fewest number of people possible should handle the paper, which should be given to the police.
• if a bomb threat is received by email, it should be saved on the computer of the person who receives it
• notify the Library’s ERC, as well as your department supervisor.
• if the authorities order an evacuation, follow established Evacuation procedures (see second section of this manual)