Bomb threat closes Sierra-at-Tahoe
Updated Jan. 14 7:55pm:
By Kathryn Reed
Sierra-at-Tahoe was evacuated Tuesday afternoon after someone phoned in a bomb threat.
The call came in about 3pm Jan. 14 to the season pass office. Resort and law enforcement officials were not releasing any details about the caller, what was said or potential motive.
El Dorado County sheriff’s Lt. Pete Van Arnum said the scene has been cleared before 8pm and no device was found. Two bomb sniffing dogs from the California Highway Patrol were used.
Steve Hemphill, spokesman for the resort, said he did not know of any other time when a bomb threat had been placed to Sierra. He also said there have been no layoffs and would not speculate on a reason for the threat.
Van Arnum told Lake Tahoe News, “(We’ll be) checking with the phone company and looking at persons who may be disgruntled with Sierra.”
The base lodge was immediately evacuated. Then systematically the lifts were cleared of skiers. Guests were not told why the resort was closing at 3:30pm. Access to the mountain was cut off at 4:30pm.
West Bowl is only open from 10am-2pm, so no one was over there who had to be evacuated.
About 300 people were evacuated, according to Van Arnum.
“In this day and age it’s not worth taking any chances so we are allowing them to do their thing,” Sierra General Manager John Rice told Lake Tahoe News.
Resort officials plan to open as normal on Jan. 15.
I was up there until 7 pm taking pictures. They brought the Canines in from Sac and to the best of my knowledge nothing was found. Sierra’s Staff, CHP, EDCO Sheriff, US Forestry and the FBI were doing an excellent job of handling what could have been a potential problem. John Rice and Mindi Befu were there to the end. Thank You guys for allowing me to be a spectator and I will be up there tomorrow as usual.
I was there this morning. Nobody knew why they had closed the park. In times like this, silence is not a good idea. The cops were not saying anything and one in particular was rude and ignored my boyfriend and I. A little help or indication of what was happening would have been nice. I saw some people just wondering around. I’m just glad it was a false alarm.
Luna,
I’m going to make a wild assumption and guess that the police officer had a lot going on at the time with an active bomb threat and all, and maybe had more pressing things to deal with than explaining to you and your boyfriend why the terrain park was closed
Log onto Lake Tahoe News; you’ll get a lifetime worth of explanations. Of damn near anything.
Luna – I agree with HUH… The police officer was likely trying his/her best to deal with a high-anxiety situation. I agree that silence is not a good thing in situations like this and perhaps there will be a post-incident meeting to discuss actions & communications. I am sure the officer was not trying to ignore you and your boyfriend, but we all have to try to let our emergency responders do their job without distraction. There simply is no “one-on-one” time during emergency situations.
Season pass holders are frustrated by lack of snow, but this is ridiculous. I hear that John Rice is doing everything possible to keep operations going in these lean snow times. This snow situation has got everyone grouchy.
I hope they catch the little puke who called this in.