Under threat

It wasn't until I glanced out of my twentieth floor window and noticed the police had cordoned off Priory Queensway that I knew something was definitely afoot. The eerie emptiness of Moor St Queensway, usually jammed with buses, told its own story too.

You see, we're used to the regular wail of sirens, being situated next to the Birmingham city centre fire station and just round the corner from the Steelhouse Lane Police Station.

We're also used to the sound of helicopters overhead - the air ambulance helipad for Birmingham Childrens' Hospital is right next to our tower block.

This was different, though - sirens blaring continually, a helicopter circling incessantly but not landing.

Evacuating 20,000 people from the city centre on a Saturday night is no mean feat. There might ultimately have been no danger, but the incident has at least proved that, if necessary, an evacuation on that sort of scale is possible.

Aston University was always likely to play a prominent role in the event of any emergency. The Main Building has been earmarked as a triage centre and one of the sports halls as a temporary morgue. As it was, we were less than 400 metres from where the controlled explosions took place and so must have come very close to being evacuated ourselves.

Thankfully it proved to be an empty threat, and all that was required of the University was that some 300 evacuees could be accommodated in the Great Hall of the Main Building. Speaking today to the Residence Tutor involved, it sounds as though some of the people bussed over were drunk and rowdy and others were upset at not being allocated empty student rooms, but many were just grateful for the shelter, bedding and refreshments laid on at such short notice.

For all the defiant statements made in the wake of the London bomb attacks on Thursday - about not being bullied or intimidated, about going about one's business as normal - it's clear that attitudes have shifted. There's a greater sense of vigilance, and also a slight jumpiness amongst people that's entirely understandable.

I'm not about to get as indignant as many of the London-based bloggers and come out with something along the lines of "How DARE they do something like this in my city" - after all, not only were no bombs detonated or lives lost, but I don't really feel like Birmingham's "my" city - but I do have a message for those responsible for posing what the police called a "real and very credible threat": FUCK YOU.

Links:

The evacuation in pictures

Bongo Vongo on the evacuation