LaGuardia Airport was evacuated this morning after officials received reports of a suspicious package.
Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, told the Business Insider that the central terminal building was evacuated this morning as the New York City Police Department’s bomb squad investigated a suspicious package.
The evacuation was later canceled.
According to WABC-TV , the package was reportedly found near a phone booth at a shopping center in the central terminal. According to a source, the bag contained a substance that looked like marijuana. It also appeared to have electrical wires coming out of it.
According to NBC , the evacuation at LaGuardia only lasted about 15 minutes. Still, the internet flooded with photos from the airport showing passengers standing on the curbs as officials investigated the suspicious package.
Major cities like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago have been on high alert since two bombs exploded yesterday at the Boston Marathon. The Celtics and the Bruins also both cancelled their games last night and city officials have been adding security to high traffic areas.
Officials at LaGuardia may be a little on edge at the moment, and the evacuation may have been premature. Let’s just be thankful that they were being safe now instead of being sorry later.
Not to start a panic but my terminal at laguardia just got evacuated twitter.com/RhinoB/status/…
— Laura Knetzger (@RhinoB) April 16, 2013
People being moved further away from the terminal. #LGA twitter.com/davehjoo/statu…
— David Joo (@davehjoo) April 16, 2013
Passengers at Laguardia airport after central terminal evacuated for reported suspicious package (pic: @ curtisorion ) twitter.com/BuzzFeedNews/s…
— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) April 16, 2013
Picture from friend at #LaGuardia Central Terminal evacuation twitter.com/WahWhoWah/stat…
— Miles (@WahWhoWah) April 16, 2013
