"We are going to have a power outage. Please choose your last item now and proceed to checkout at the front of the store."
Huh? I could barely hear the seemingly carefree announcement at the Warsaw Wal-Mart around 5 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2009, and I actually had to ask another customer if we were being asked to leave. The announcement was repeated by a different person with a bit more urgency a minute later. Since I had just gotten there, I only had one item in my cart; and I headed toward the checkout lanes, looking around as I walked to see if there was anything else I needed as I passed by.
While Wal-Mart associates seemed a bit edgy herding customers toward the front of the store and making sure no one was going back into the shopping area; customers were taking their time meandering toward the front, clearly unaware that their very lives could possibly be in danger.
Even though the situation seemed odd and didn't make much sense to me, I didn't feel threatened. After all, how urgent could pre-knowledge of a power outage be? Surely, Wal-Mart would wait until everyone had gone through the checkout lines before they cut the power. Leaving the store, I knew for sure that something else was going on as there were several emergency vehicles parked outside.
About an hour later, I discovered there had actually been a bomb threat. I think I'm a little bit offended that Wal-Mart would rather risk my life than risk losing the money for my one $8 item.
I can understand that perhaps this was a tactic to prevent panic; but honestly, couldn't they have thought of some other way to ask people to leave if they didn't want to state the truth? When my son was in school, the students were evacuated for a bomb scare in the middle of winter and weren't allowed to even get their coats, let alone stand in line at a checkout counter.
Why on earth would Wal-Mart not just get everyone out?
