The Chronicle is reporting that the police have opened up an area of downtown evacuated earlier today:
Several blocks in downtown Houston were evacuated this morning just as employees were showing up for work, but police are opening the area back up already.
More details to come.
That’s some scanty reporting considering the Chronicle offices are downtown.
KHOU-11, whose offices are nearby on Allen Parkway, reports more details and suggests a bomb scare may have been the cause:
Houston police have blocked off an area in the 700 block of San Jacinto downtown after a suspicious device was found Thursday morning.
Houston police evacuated 701 San Jacinto Thursday morning after a suspicious device was found.
A bomb squad has been called to the scene and the building at 701 San Jacinto has been evacuated. It’s not known at this time when or who discovered the device.
We’ll post an update as developments warrant.
(Update) The Chronicle has updated their story (reproduced above in its entirety from earlier) with this:
A downtown post office was evacuated this morning when workers found a suspicious package that turned out to contain some watches, a spiral notebook and a few other personal items.
Streets around the post office in the 700 block of San Jacinto were closed for less than hour as the Houston Police Department’s bomb squad rushed to the scene and checked out the package.
So, it was a false alarm. Thankfully.
