springdellgirl

Crazy World

Yesterday we had another reality check of what a different world our kids are growing up in. Two homemade explosive devices went off in two different buildings at Reilly's high school. Both Reilly and Bryn were in both of those buildings during that time. Both are fine thank goodness...but seriously? Can't we send kids off to school anymore and feel confident that they will be safe? Apparently not.

When I dropped off Bryn at the preschool in the morning there was a fire truck in the parking lot but as I walked her inside it didn't seem like anything was amiss. Then when I picked her up a couple of hours later an unmarked police car drove in behind me and two police officers hurried inside. That doesn't ever give a parent a good feeling...especially with two daughters inside. Nothing was said as I picked Bryn up and drove home.

Brynnie ate a quick lunch and then we rushed out the door to get her to ballet. As I was driving out of my neighborhood I saw all kinds of high school students walking. Odd. I checked my emails to see if there was any reason the high school was out early...nothing. We live close to the high school and before I had gone more than two blocks I saw that there were high school students everywhere walking home. I quickly spotted Reilly walking with a friend and pulled over to ask her what was going on. She said that she heard that someone had set off smoke bombs and that everyone had to be evacuated. I dropped her off at her friend's house to study for finals and took Bryn to ballet. While driving there Tyler called to tell me that two homemade bombs had been detonated in two different buildings at two different times and that some teachers had been injured. As I drove past the high school it was swarming with firetrucks, ambulances, police cars, and news vans. (Reilly saw a guy in our ward who is a local TV news reporter and she said hi to him and asked him what was going on and her told her to just get out of the school fast and get home!!)

It wasn't until I had been at ballet for about 15 minutes that I finally got a call from the school saying what had happened and that the school had been evacuated and all activities were cancelled for the rest of the day...that was probably a good 30 minutes or more AFTER they sent all the kids home. That is a FAIL on the emergency notification system in my opinion. When I saw all the kids I quickly checked my phone for texts or emails from the school. Nothing.

Anyway...the person who set the 2 liter soda bottle "bombs" confessed and the authorities have assessed the school and found it safe so everyone went to school as normal this morning. Seriously though...this kind of stuff is CRAZY. It this the new norm?