Students and staff went into a lockdown on Monday around 11:15, and students quickly realized that this announcement was not the beginning of a drill.

“At first I thought it was a drill, but as time kept going on I got a little more panic[ked], and I realized it was pretty real,” junior Natalie Haecke said.

Students and staff around the building, including Haecke, who was running the Patriot Post at the time of the lockdown, were forced to make quick decisions regarding the next steps after the lockdown was announced.

“We’re usually supposed to go to the office, but they’ve talked about us just staying in the Post during these situations,” Haecke said. “I had to make a decision, and I decided it was probably safer to go to the office in case it was real.”

Administrators also had to handle making rapid decisions regarding what the best course of action was.

“You make your best decision for everyone at that moment,” principal Heidi Weaver said. “You have to feel your gut instinct and move on… right now we are doing what’s best for what we think in this situation.”

As time went on, students continued to get more anxious about the lockdown.

“There were a few people who were crying,” junior Molly Kaldahl said. “They were more worried about their siblings in the building.”

Kaldahl was one of many students who spent the lockdown in the tightly packed orchestra cage, a space that intensified the situation for students.

“The vibe in the orchestra closet was hot, dark, and annoying,” senior Tyler Heisler said.

“We were all crammed in for at least an hour,” added junior Grace Perkinson. “A lot of people were claustrophobic so some people were freaking out.”

There seem to be conflicting opinions about how the situation was handled, with some feeling like there was a lack of communication, and others feeling like they were informed of what was going on the whole time.

“For me, communication was great. [It] seemed like it was handled well. Teacher[s] [were] kept up to date, and officers came in [and] checked everything out,” senior Connor Cason said.

“It was nice getting actively updated on the situation, and what was going on,” said junior Isaac Gibson, who was in College Algebra at the time of the lockdown. “I think overall, we reacted to the situation the best we could have.”

Conversely, senior Brady Wilde who was in AP Biology, said he felt there was less communication.

“Between the teachers not knowing what was going on, and the students not knowing what was going on, it was horrifying,” Wilde said.

Freshman Cailyn Stanton added that she was “kind of anxious, especially because they did not give us any information about what was happening at all.”

The close call also scared students due to the fact that some rooms felt more vulnerable to possible threats, with Wilde adding, “My room had two doors, so there was no getting out of sight.”

At the end of the nearly hour-long lockdown, it became more evident what the source of the lockdown had been.

“About 11:10, a call went through the Veterans Affairs Hotline that said at Millard South High School there was a veteran in the building with a rifle in a bathroom,” Principal Weaver said.

“Instantly, even before the other police officers got here, people started searching the bathrooms since that was the alleged threat. Every bathroom that we knew of was checked.  We even checked the exterior bathrooms like both at Buell, softball bathrooms, baseball bathrooms, even bathrooms most people didn’t even know existed,” she said.

It was at this point that police began searching the classrooms to further investigate the threat and ensure it was safe for the day to continue.

“They came in and said ‘Omaha Police Department, we’re sweeping all the rooms,’” counselor Elizabeth Dickson, who was in the counseling office at the time of the threat said. “It was quick; they just told us that we were clear and we could turn our lights on,” she said.

Eventually, it became clear that the threat was part of a larger string of false threats around the country.

“Most importantly, you need to know this call was a hoax, otherwise known as a ‘swatting’ event. Everyone is safe. Police continue to investigate. They have been able to determine that the call did not come from the Omaha area,” wrote Superintendent Dr. John Schwartz in his message to the Millard community.

Though the threat may not have been authentic, the response definitely was.

“I can’t tell you how proud I am,” Principal Weaver said. “People did their jobs. They were calm, they kept the kids calm. The police department said so many nice things about how our students acted, about our staff, everybody. Which is what we want to hear in these situations.”