Joy Holden was halfway finished with cutting a woman’s hair when the phone rang in Smart Style.
An hour later, sitting in her car outside the Walmart on Greenway View Drive that contains the salon, Ms. Holden said the lady had to leave “with half a haircut.”
“She can come back; I’ll be here until 5 p.m.” she said.
Someone called in a bomb threat to the Walmart about 12:30 p.m. Thursday, prompting the evacuation of nearly 100 employees and an unknown number of patrons, authorities said.
Chattanooga Police Department bomb squad members had cleared the building and determined there wasn’t a device or danger by 1:45 p.m., and employees began to trickle back in.
Just making a bomb threat is a Class C felony in Tennessee, punishable by three to 15 years in prison and a maximum fine of $10,000, according to state law.
Shopper Renee Shelton said she tried to push her cart to the front of the store when she heard “code blue” over the intercom system and they started to evacuate the customers.
In the parking lot while the lockdown was in place, she said she hoped that, after the threat was cleared, she could buy her items. But employees said she needed to leave right away, so she drove off.