A possible, unspecified terror threat closed one of two tunnels carrying traffic under Baltimore's harbor. Another was partially shut down in response to what an official said was a security threat.
A spokeswoman for the FBI Baltimore field office, Carla McIntosh, tells WBAL Radio that her office received some information on October 14 with a possible threat to a tunnel. She says agents are conducting interviews. A federal law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, says the threat was phoned in to authorities by a person claiming to have information from abroad. But the source says authorities are skeptical of the claim.
A spokesman for the Governor's Office of Homeland Security in Maryland, Jim Pettit, says officials are acting out of an abundance of caution.
The Baltimore Harbor Tunnel was closed while the Fort McHenry Tunnel was partially closed, with one lane of traffic moving in each direction, said Lt. Col. David Franklin of the Maryland Transportation Authority Police.
The closures were in response to a threat, a federal law enforcement official said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, did not provide further information about the nature of the threat.
But another federal law enforcement official said the threat was phoned in to authorities by a person claiming to have information from abroad. Authorities are skeptical of the claim, but are checking it out nonetheless out of an abundance of caution, the official said. That source also spoke on condition of anonymity.
View the Maryland Department of Transportation's traffic webcams http://www.wbal.com/traffic/