LOGAN, Utah (ABC4) Utah State University issued an emergency alert ordering the Old Main Building to be evacuated.

The alert was issued at 2:44 p.m. on Tuesday, September 30. Anyone in the Old Main Building has been ordered to leave immediately using the nearest exit and to follow instructions from emergency personnel.

According to USU spokesperson Amanda DeRito, there was a suspicious package in the building, and police are responding. No further information is available at this time.

Witnesses told ABC4 that they were in class when they were evacuated, and they said that they saw bomb squad units outside the building and that there was a detonation of some kind. After evacuating, many students were standing around on the quad, talking to each other.

“We all just took our backpacks. It didn’t really seem that serious, so we just left calmly, but when we got outside, we saw all the police officers and the K-9s, so I figured it was something more intense than just a safety drill,” one witness said.

“We heard some shouts of ‘fire in the hole’ before it exploded, and that was kind of a shock, that there actually was something,” another witness said.

Later tonight, Turning Point USA is scheduled to hold an event on USU campus, and several security measures have been put in place in anticipation of the event to ensure the safety of all attendees. The event tonight is going to be hosted by Alex Clark and will feature a panel of Governor Cox, Senator Lee (R-UT), Representative Andy Biggs (R-AZ), and former Utah Representative Jason Chaffetz.

Witnesses told ABC4 that they weren’t expecting anything like this to happen today, despite tension on campus being heightened in the past few weeks due to Charlie Kirk’s killing and the political climate.