Anchorage Daily News

MEADOW LAKES -- Meadow Lakes Elementary experienced a brief lockdown Wednesday morning after school officials heard five shotgun blasts outside the school.

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"I said, 'You know what? We're going to make this a drill just to be safe,' " said Meadow Lakes Elementary Principal Mary McMahon.

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The lockdown ended without incident after about 90 minutes at the school, which has 411 students from preschool to fifth grade.

Authorities later said the shots likely came from nearby hunters.

But school officials initially assumed the shots came from wildlife agents called earlier to handle two moose calves charging school buses.

Principal Mary McMahon heard the shots -- one at a time, five or 10 seconds apart -- and decided to hold one of the school's two yearly lockdown drills right then and there, at 10:57 a.m.

"I said, 'You know what? We're going to make this a drill just to be safe.' "

The school called fish and wildlife officers with the Alaska State Troopers to see if they'd fired the shots. They hadn't.

That's when the school contacted patrol troopers to secure school grounds. Then they sent a ConnectEd call to parents notifying them the school was in lockdown. A school bus was diverted to a nearby fire station, as were any parents who came to the school.

Students were told to stay in their classrooms, except for emergency, escorted visits to the bathroom.

"I think we only had one little kid that immediately started throwing up," administrative secretary Stephanie Risley said. The student was taken to the nurse's office.

Three uniformed troopers arrived at 11:41 a.m., according to Risley. The troopers found no moose or shooter, only signs of trampled brush, McMahon said.

Troopers issued an all-clear at 12:18 p.m., ending the lockdown, the principal said.

The school day continued as usual, except for delayed recess and lunch. Some parents also fetched their children before the official end of the day at 3:30 p.m.

Dana Rood came to pick up her second- and first-graders early for an appointment.

Rood said the school's message didn't mention any moose and just said that shots were fired nearby and the school was locked down. All she could think of were the two school shootings last week in which five girls died in an attack at an Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania and one girl was killed in Colorado.

"I just kind of froze," she said.

It's more likely the shots came from a duck hunter at a nearby lake than a moose poacher, said Sgt. Tory Oleck, one of two fish and wildlife troopers who cruised the school area early Wednesday morning but saw no moose.

A janitor saw the cow moose jump a fence around the school and then saw the two calves near a gate, Oleck said, so the moose probably left on their own.

Still, he said, the school did the right thing.

"They took the proper steps to ensure the safety of the kids."