County school hit by 2 threats Students unhurt in Madawaska

MADAWASKA – Emergency personnel found nothing when they searched Madawaska Middle-High School twice Tuesday after two telephone bomb threats.

The first call came in the morning. The second was in the afternoon.

The school has received three bomb threats this month. The first occurred Feb. 7.

Nothing was found in any of the incidents, and no one has been charged.

In all of the cases, students at the school were taken to the gymnasium at Madawaska Elementary School.

Most students had not arrived at the school when a secretary received a telephone call at 7:20 a.m. The caller said a bomb was in the school. Students were gathered in a parking lot and bused to the elementary school. They returned to classes at 9:20 a.m.

The second incident was triggered by a call about 12:40 p.m. The school again was evacuated, and students were taken to the Madawaska Elementary School gymnasium. They returned to the middle-high school once the search of the school was completed shortly after 2 p.m., just before dismissal for the day.

During both incidents, teams made up of police officers, volunteer firefighters and ambulance personnel searched the building. The searches took nearly two hours.

“It makes for an expensive situation,” Sgt. Carroll Theriault of the Madawaska Police Department said Tuesday morning. “While police and ambulance personnel are already on duty, firefighters are called in.

“We need to check out the entire school when this happens,” he said.

Madawaska Police Chief Ronald Pelletier said, “We did the same search all over again” Tuesday afternoon. “It’s time-consuming and expensive for the town.”

Each time a threat occurs, the 385 students are evacuated to an upper parking lot at the school and bused to the Madawaska Elementary School where they remain until the building is cleared or dismissal.

“We hope to find the source of the threats,” Pelletier said. “We have to do the searches as a precaution for everyone.”

Theriault said police still were investigating leads from the Feb. 7 incident, but no one has been charged. He said that situation remains under investigation.

Madawaska Middle-High School also received bomb threats in 2004 and 2005. No one was hurt in those incidents.