At 10:05 a.m. Thursday morning, the Palo Alto Police Department received a threat from an anonymous man who claimed that a bomb had been planted at Palo Alto City Hall that would detonate at 11:05 a.m. According to The San Jose Mercury News, all 350 employees were evacuated from the nine-story building at 10:40 a.m.

While there was no explosion at 11:05 a.m., bomb squads searched the building for about two hours. Speaking to The Daily about the bomb scare, Palo Alto Mayor Pat Burt stated, “There were not any indications that it was a serious one or a genuine one.”

He went to explain that the police conducted “a routine check to make sure that there was no legitimacy to the threat.”

The City Hall staff went back to work at 2 p.m. after the four-hour evacuation.