Richmond Airport reopened after evacuation
The Richmond International Airport has been reopened after a threatening phone call forced an evacuation.
Update #2 — June 11, 2013; 11:21 AM
Below is a timeline of this morning’s evacuation at the Richmond International Airport:
- 6:10 AM — Richmond International Airport receives a threatening call.
- 6:20 AM — Nature of call was deemed to present a serious potential risk to the public and the decision was made by RIC Public Safety to evacuate the terminal and nearby parking decks. Notifications were made to mutual aid partners including Virginia State Police, Virginia Capitol Police, Henrico Police, and Richmond Police, as well as to other local, state, and federal agencies.
- 8:00 AM — K-9 sweeps underway, conducted by various teams in public areas to include terminal concourses, ticketing, baggage claim and parking decks.
- 8:10 AM — Parking decks declared clear, permitting public to access vehicles and depart RIC, if desired.
- 8:35 AM — Concourse A clear.
- 9:05 AM — Public areas of terminal declared clear, sweeps move to baggage make-up areas.
- 9:20 AM — Airline crew, TSA, and other workers in the terminal reassumed work stations.
- 9:40 AM — Terminal re-opened to the public.
— ∮∮∮ —
Update #1 — June 11, 2013; 9:44 AM
After conducting several sweeps of terminals and parking decks, the Richmond International Airport reopened nearly three hours after a phone threat forced an evacuation.
Update: #RIC terminal, including airline desks and security screening, re-opened to the public. #RICevac
— Richmond Airport RIC (@Flack4RIC) June 11, 2013
An airport spokesperson said that while flights would be leaving the airport today, “it may be a while before we’re back to normal.”
— ∮∮∮ —
Original — June 11, 2013
Around 6:30 AM on Tuesday, the Richmond International Airport was evacuated. The airport received a threat via phone that was “deemed serious enough to evacuate the terminal as a precautionary measure.”
Updates below, in reverse chronological order:
More as it develops.
Photo by: darylcalfee
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Notice: Comments that are not conducive to an interesting and thoughtful conversation may be removed at the editor’s discretion.
I’m actually rather impressed that the were able to reopen 3.5 hours after the call, clearing both the parking decks and terminal.
Yeah, because bad guys call and let you know before they bomb something….yup. Now if it was done because of good intelligence or someone claiming they heard someone saying they were going to do something…that would make sense. Otherwise, just a huge waste of people’s time and resources.