Bomb threats evacuate 3 college campuses

AUSTIN, Texas -- Thousands of people streamed off three college campuses Friday after bomb threats prompted officials to issue evacuation orders for schools in Texas, North Dakota and Ohio.

The campuses of the University of Texas at Austin and North Dakota State University in Fargo had been deemed safe by early afternoon, and authorities were working to determine whether the threats were related. A third evacuation order for much-smaller Hiram College in northeast Ohio was issued hours later and remained in effect Friday evening.

Officials posted a statement on the college's website saying Hiram had received a bomb threat it was "taking seriously." Police confirmed the evacuation. The statement said crews with bomb-sniffing dogs were checking all buildings on the campus where about 1,300 students are enrolled.

The threats on the much-larger campuses in Texas and North Dakota ended as false alarms.

Both of those campuses emptied at quick but orderly paces Friday morning, though students acknowledged an air of confusion about what was going on. The threats came as violent protests outside U.S. embassies in the Middle East also stirred nervous tension among some students.

The first threat came around 8:35 a.m. to the University of Texas from a man claiming to belong to al-Qaida, officials said. The caller claimed bombs placed throughout campus would go off in 90 minutes, but administrators waited more than an hour before blaring sirens and telling 50,000 students to immediately "get as far away as possible" in emergency text messages.

UT president Bill Powers defended the decision not to evacuate sooner: " . . . the first thing we needed to do was evaluate."

North Dakota State University president Dean Bresciani said about 20,000 people left the Fargo school's campuses as part of an evacuation "that largely took place in a matter of minutes." FBI spokesman Kyle Loven said NDSU received a call about 9:45 a.m. that included a "threat of an explosive device."

Also Friday, Valparaiso University in Indiana increased security and posted a warning to students on its website after a vague threat was discovered scrawled in graffiti. The FBI and local authorities searched the campus but found nothing suspicious.