Seeing a few different Facebook posts about an evacuation at Penn Square tonight (Friday, 6 Jan). Nothing on local media. Anyone heard/know anything?

A few friends were there for a movie, were by the Starbucks, when the sirens went off. They were directed to shelter in place, inside the (now locked) coffee shop only to hear later it was a false fire alarm. They were concerned about being inside a locked store during a "possible fire". Of course I was not there myself, only stating what I had heard.

A few friends were there for a movie, were by the Starbucks, when the sirens went off. They were directed to shelter in place, inside the (now locked) coffee shop only to hear later it was a false fire alarm. They were concerned about being inside a locked store during a "possible fire". Of course I was not there myself, only stating what I had heard.

False alarm was what I had heard as well, but I had *not* heard about the "shelter in place" aspect. Saw some FB posts that indicated people were running to the parking lot, some were in the theater....

Well unless the alarm can say different things depending on the alert, then the same fire alarm goes off for a fire or possible terrorist issue. I would guess that if they suggested "shelter in place", it was not a suspected fire, rather some other disturbance that they thought it was better to have people run into the closest store and lock the door than flee in a crazy flood. For example, if there was an active shooter, i think hiding out in the nearest shelter is probably better than offering a flood of victims since you can't direct them away from a specific area during a shooter event.