The University of Miami’s Richter Library was reopened Thursday afternoon after having been evacuated that morning as police responded to a possible bomb threat.
“There was a note found in a bathroom, and the kid who found it turned it in, and that’s what sparked all of this,” said Coral Gables Police Sgt. Dean Wellinghoff. “Right now we’re doing a search with the bomb dogs to be safe.”
Students, like sophomore Kamille Winslow were evacuated a little after 10 a.m.
“I was on the second floor of the library in the quiet area … then I heard a male voice say, ‘Please evacuate the library,’ and I thought it was a student, but then I saw a cop and another one on the other side so he directly told me to evacuate,” she said.
The rest of the University of Miami was alerted of the situation when an Emergency Notifiction Network message was issued at 10:28 a.m., approximately 20 minutes after the initial evacuation.
According to School of Communication employee Pedro Delgado, who was walking through the Farmers’ Market, UMPD, the Coral Gables Police Department, UM Facilities and library personnel were seen meeting outside of Richter during the time between the evacuation and the notification.
Junior Jade Wollschlaeger, who was studying chemistry in one of the study rooms on the second floor, was confused by the vagueness of the evacuation.
“It was weird because I was there and had no idea what was happening until I was at Oasis,” she said. “That’s pretty bad that it took 15 minutes to get that alert.”
UM sent out a second ENN alert at 12:14 p.m. alerting students and staff that Richter was all clear after police had swept over the area, and that there was no cause for concern found.
The Miami Hurricane’s Opinion Editor Lyssa Goldberg contributed to this report.