Municipal offices on heightened awareness

While schools received most of the attention for their reaction to Thursday’s bomb threat, the caller also included references to placing a bomb in City Hall.

But the caller didn’t say which City Hall in Douglas County, so several offices went into heightened awareness after the early-morning 911 call.

David Corliss, Lawrence city manager, said city workers followed protocol in responding to such threats, but he wouldn’t go into specifics about what was done.

“It was a mild disruption to the people who work at City Hall,” he said.

Lawrence police sent notice early in the morning to city officials that municipal offices were mentioned in the otherwise nondescript bomb threat.

Corliss said Lawrence City Hall has received bomb threats in the past but added that they were “very infrequent.”

In Eudora, city employees did several searches of City Hall after they were notified of the threat.

“They saw nothing out of place and it was business as usual,” said Eudora Police Sgt. Greg Neis.

He said Eudora is sometimes the subject of bomb threats, but Thursday’s vague threat didn’t prompt widespread fear.

“If somebody is pretty serious, they’re going to give you a lot of specifics,” he said.

Meanwhile, in Lawrence, Corliss said employees were back to their usual routine by the afternoon.

“To the extent at which things are normal at City Hall, I’d say things are back to normal,” Corliss said.