Phone call prompts evacuation of 50,000 UT students

One dialing finger disrupts 50,000 people  

Austin – Big league terrorism made its debut in the densely populated downtown area of the state capitol first thing this morning.

A single glib-tongued caller caused widespread confusion that affected tens of thousands of people, rendering the heart of the city helpless and disorganized with a phone call.

Grid-locked traffic seeking to both leave and enter the University of Texas downtown campus resulted in a massive traffic jam as students arrived to begin classwork.

A threatening phone call attributed to Al Qaeda left as many as 20,000 pedestrians with umbrellas wandering The Drag in a pouring rain as campus administrators and faculty stood at entrances to the campus to deny them entry.

The caller told authorities that the radical Islamic group had spotted explosives in multiple locations throughout the sprawling campus that serves 50,000 students.

With violent Islamic demonstrations raging at 20 locations throughout the mid-east and the recent rocket attack on the American consulate at Benghazi, Libya, that caused the death of the ambassador, authorities gave the threat all the credibility in the world.

The university's administration took immediate steps to evacuate students from the campus, prompting the traffic gridlock of cars seeking to leave parking garages and lots and those as yet uninformed of the closure whose drivers were trying to find parking.

Incredulous students who wandered in the rain, unsure of what to do, told newsmen they were uninformed of what, exactly, had occurred. Faculty and administrative officials remained tight-lipped about the state of affairs. They were reportedly standing watch alone as law enforcement officers worked to clear the snarled traffic that tied up streets and bridges throughout the area.

As events unfolded, one could only marvel at what could have happened had terrorists indeed planted improvised explosive devices in parked automobiles and the odd backpack or briefcase spotted in strategic locations.

The campus is scheduled to reopen at 5 p.m. today.