NEW YORK – The National Park Service says a 911 made a bomb threat against the Statue of Liberty, leading to a precautionary evacuation of the island.
The Park Service said in a statement Friday afternoon that all visitors and personnel were safe.
It says the call came in around 11 a.m. Friday. According to the Park Service, the person said "they were going to blow up the Statue of Liberty."
Law enforcement explosives experts were on the island along with Park Service police.
Hundreds of visitors were evacuated by boat.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
The Statue of Liberty was evacuated Friday as police responded to a report of a suspicious package.
The New York Police Department had boats at the scene. Visitors said hundreds of people were herded toward a ferry landing and off Liberty Island.
John Blount, of Allentown, Pennsylvania, was in the statue's crown, chatting with a park ranger.
"All of a sudden he got a call on his phone," Blount said. "He said 'OK', looked up and said, 'It's time to leave.' We had just made it up there."
He said it was a very calm evacuation down. They got on a boat, and "we were just floating around out there for the past hour and a half."
His wife's purse was in a locker; they had to leave without reclaiming their property.
The National Park Service, which oversees the statue and the island, did not respond to phone and email requests for comment.
Statue Cruises, which operates the ferries that carry tourists to the Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island, said officials found a suspicious package at Liberty Island. The company was postponing all service to the island until the investigation was completed, said Mike Burke, its chief operating officer and vice president.
Eric Gustafson, of Worchester, Massachusetts, was on Liberty Island with his wife and son. They were about to enter the building for the tour when park rangers ushered "everyone to the flagpole" and then told them they had to leave.
"They didn't give us a reason for it. The communication was lacking," he said. About 90 minutes later, they were back in Manhattan.
They later saw Twitter accounts about a suspicious package.
"We weren't nervous. It was mostly just frustrating," he said, adding that the evacuation was very orderly.
Other tourists said they were taken off boats while trying to leave nearby Ellis Island, then those vessels then were used to evacuate Liberty Island.
Karen Mason, 68, of Cincinnati, Ohio, said they had just boarded a boat at Ellis Island at 12:40 p.m. "All of a sudden, they said 'Disembark, disembark, disembark. We have to evacuate the boat.'"
She said she didn't feel like she was in any danger. "But we saw helicopters and we knew something was going on," she said.
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Associated Press Writers Tom Hays and Kiley Armstrong contributed to this report.
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