Dance Troupe Causes Terror Scare at Lincoln Tunnel

Here's a tip: Don't run through the Lincoln Tunnel with seven other people dressed in camouflage during the evening rush.

Members of a Florida dance troupe likely won't forget that one after what happened yesterday afternoon.

The group caused a scare when they dashed through the Lincoln Tunnel in their camouflage costumes, forcing the FBI-NYPD Joint Terrorism Task Force to respond en masse and further delaying aggravated drivers stuck in tunnel traffic, according to The New York Post.

All they wanted was to make it on a live TV talent show. The five young women and three young men who comprise the Jacksonville step group Ladies of Envy were supposed to appear Wednesday on BET's "106 & Park'' show when they hit gridlock.

Fearing they wouldn't make their much-anticipated performance, the group left their adult chaperones behind and ran through the toll plaza and into the tube which links New Jersey and New York City.

Port Authority police were in hot pursuit.

Eternity Odom, a member of the step group, told The Journal of Jersey City she could see the lights of Manhattan when police caught her. The 16-year-old said police forced her to her knees and drew guns on the others.

"It was terrifying, I was crying," Odom told the Post.

Apparently, the group, who had never been to the city before, didn't know they couldn't run through the Lincoln Tunnel.

"I am from Florida. We don't have tunnels," Terrel James, the group's 24-year-old choreographer, told NJ.com. "Apparently we couldn't do that." 

Eventually, the group managed to explain their predicament to authorities, who offered them an escort to the studio on West 57th Street, the paper reported. Unfortunately, they didn't make it in time to participate in the show, but a BET spokeswoman said the station would reschedule.

Next time, we bet they won't hightail it through the tunnel.

(Since we feel bad they didn't make it to the show, we're embedding their YouTube video below. Check 'em out.)