Reward offered over B.C. Ferries bomb threat
Canadian Press
July 29, 2007 at 8:22 AM EDT
DELTA, B.C. — Thousands of summer travellers were stuck for hours Saturday when B.C. Ferries was forced to cancel sailings after receiving a bomb threat that police considered credible.
David Hahn, chief operating officer of B.C. Ferries, said the threat came in a 911 call to police at about 3:30 in the afternoon from a mall in suburban Coquitlam from a man with a Middle Eastern accent.
“Whether it was a Middle Eastern caller is a different issue, but that was the accent they were using,” Mr. Hahn said.
Twenty-one sailings were cancelled and travellers were forced to wait in terminals near Vancouver, Victoria and Nanaimo.
A report from CTV British Columbia
Police are reportedly investigating a possible bomb threat after a suspicious backpack was discovered on board The Queen of New Westminster
Police investigate possible bomb threat at B.C. ferry terminal
Police and three sniffer dogs searched the ships, cars, campers and buses and no one was allowed to leave the terminal until their vehicle had been inspected, Mr. Hahn said.
Passengers were confined to the terminal cafeteria before police gave them the go-ahead to leave.
One ferry had already left the terminal and had to be turned back. Another ferry that was ready to depart for Schwartz Bay in Victoria was halted.
All the passengers on both ships were evacuated and their vehicles searched.
As well, all the vehicles clogging the parking lot at the Tsawwassen terminal south of Vancouver had to be searched. Once inspected, the owners were asked to leave.
The Tsawwassen terminal is about a 40-minute drive south of Vancouver and is one of the ferry fleet's main terminals.
Ships sail from there to Schwartz Bay, near Victoria, and Duke Point, near Nanaimo, as well as to several smaller islands off the B.C. coast.
The big ships between Tsawwassen and Schwartz Bay carry up to 470 cars and 2,100 passengers. In the summer, ferries depart between the two terminals every hour.
Mr. Hahn said people were significantly inconvenienced and some would have had to wait up to six hours.
By 9 p.m., the ships were able to return to limited service.
“Those people were there for a God-awful long time,” Mr. Hahn said.
“This was a very specific type of bomb threat that was reported . . . The RCMP had every vehicle, every bus, every camper, checked.
“(It caused) tremendous inconvenience to our customers.”
The ferry system routinely gets bomb threats and had one as recently as a month ago, but Saturday's full-scale alert was rare, Mr. Hahn said.
“I would say that this is one that, for whatever reason, the RCMP gave more credibility,” he said.
Mr. Hahn said Ferries is offering a $50,000 reward to anyone with information that will lead to an arrest of whoever called in the threat.
Police in suburban Delta also said they are investigating who made the threat.
Constable Sharlene Brooks said a police command post was set up at the ferry terminal and that the RCMP brought in bomb-sniffing dogs and a marine-section vessel to patrol the area around the terminal.
“It was a co-operative effort,” Const. Brooks said.
She said officers searched up to four ships as well as the terminal area. Bomb-sniffing dogs were used to inspect each of the cars in the loading area, she added.
While cars were allowed to eventually board a departing vessel, Const. Brooks said no foot passengers were allowed to do so.
“Passengers were inconvenienced but they were very patient,” she said. “Our priority is to ensure the safety of the public.”
Beyond the reward, though, Mr. Hahn said there isn't much B.C. Ferries can do to prevent such threats.
“We can't control who wakes up in the morning and decides to do that, whether it's to a plane or a bus or a ferry or a mall.”
Earlier this year, an executive with B.C. Ferries mused that passengers should brace themselves for increased security on the ships, suggesting the company may move toward implementing airport-style measures.
Ferries later backed away from that extreme, but in May, the company received $4-million from the federal government to help improve security.
The money was to be spent at terminals in Nanaimo, Swartz Bay and Tsawwassen for things like perimeter security, lighting, fencing, surveillance cameras and employee training. |
