People had to evacuate all the businesses at Wake Forest Plaza early on Monday afternoon, Aug. 8, because of a “suspicious object” found in the area by a Wake Forest Power crew member. Wake Forest Police and Fire departments helped with the evacuation of the Wake Forest Renaissance Centre, Over the Falls restaurant, Page 158 Books and Dollar General and the bomb squad with the Raleigh Police Department was called.
About two hours later the emergency was declared over. That object turned out to be something called a “sacrificial anode” that PSNC attaches to its gas lines to help locate and protect the lines. Everyone was able to go back to business.
You could make fun of all the fuss, but that would be wrong. It is better to treat something as serious and protect people than to shrug it off and, maybe, find out later it really was a bomb.
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The Gazette has to apologize for an error. In the Aug. 8 article about the active shooter classes we said “. . . both classes were full with 25 people each . . .” Actually one of the classes, held at the Renaissance Centre, had 100 people, a tidbit not revealed in the town’s press releases. So, 125 local people know how to handle themselves in an active shooter situation, a good thing. Seems the larger number should have been publicized by the town.
Let’s hope the town schedules another class soon, best done at the Renaissance Centre because it can accommodate four times as many. And there may be, probably are, 100-plus people who want to take the free course.