A college campus in New Jersey was evacuated and shut down for several hours Thursday as officials investigated a bomb threat that turned out to be unfounded, authorities said.
Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J. was evacuated and its evening classes were canceled after South Orange Police learned of an "unverified" online bomb threat, officials said.
Campus police conducted a full sweep of all buildings, and the Essex County Sheriff's Office deployed its bomb squad and K-9 units to the campus. No evidence of a bomb was found anywhere, and the campus reopened to residence students and essential personnel before 8 p.m.
All classes and campus operations will resume as normal beginning Friday, according to the school's website.
Around 10,000 students are normally enrolled in the private Roman Catholic university, but only about 100 were on campus because the school is currently in the middle of a three-week intersession before its summer semester begins, according to the academic calendar on its website.
One of the students who had to evacuate described being caught by surprise.
"I was actually taking a shower and then I heard the alarm went off," said Jaclyn Colopietro, who then got the school-wide alert on her cell phone.
She said parents frantically tried to reach her shortly after the alert went out.
