Threat Called In to FTC Campus Requires Building Evacuation and FPC Lockdown

Last Updated: 2:08 p.m.

A threat was called in to Flagler Technical College on the campus of Flagler Palm Coast High School late this morning, requiring evacuation of buildings at FTC and a lockdown at FPC, a district spokesman said. The threat appeared to be part of a string of similar threats made to college campuses in Volusia and St. Johns counties today, and in Broward county Wednesday.

The alleged threat locally is focused on the portion of the campus occupied by FTC, the vocational college, which is delineated from the school campus by a fence. “The high school is not an area of concern right now,” the spokesman said. Code Red, the lockdown order, which requires all faculty and staff to stay in place and does not allow people to go onto or leave campus, was requested by the Sheriff’s Office out of caution.




Meanwhile, sheriff’s deputies have been sweeping through the FTC buildings.

The call was received around 1:15 a.m. by someone claiming he’d found a bomb in a room at FTC, and that students had left the room, but staff at the college reported no such activity, suggesting that whoever was calling in was fabricating the account from elsewhere. But authorities could not take chances.

It’s summer, but the campus is a beehive of activity, with summer school at the high school, classes at FTC, faculty or employee training throughout, and further activity at the Youth Center, at the east end of FPC’s campus. In all, there were some 200 students at the school today, not including the students at FTC.

The incident began a little before noon.

FTC was last the focus of a similar law enforcement response in 2015, when it was known as Flagler Technical Institute, and when an anonymous call reported a gun being hidden in a bathroom. A gun was not found. A knife was. Then as now, the sweep required the FPC campus to be locked down.

On Wednesday, two Eastern Florida State College campuses, at Cocoa and Palm Bay, were closed after bomb threats were called in there. The campuses were swept and reopened. There was also a confirmed report of a similar situation affecting Daytona State College’s Edgewater campus today, as well as at Kaiser University, suggesting that the series of threats may have originated from the same source. Around the same time, a similar threat was made at a college in St. Augustine.