Norfolk Navy base on lockdown after bomb threat near 4 aircraft carriers
All piers at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia have been locked down after a bomb threat came in around 6 a.m. on Wednesday morning, according to the Virginia Pilot.
Base security swept the area with dogs which detected something in a vehicle around the USS Abraham Lincoln and Harry S. Truman aircraft carriers on Pier 14, according to The Pilot.
A shelter-in-place order has also been placed on piers holding the USS George Washington and the US Navy's new $13 billion USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, which was commissioned just two weeks ago.
The Norfolk Naval Base represents one of the US Navy's most important installations and is one of the few sites that can work on nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.
Explosive ordnance disposal, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and base fire and emergency response teams have all responded, according to the Pilot.
The incident follows an all-night search for an unidentified diver who witnesses reported swimming around the scene on Monday night. The search for the diver caused the base to go on lockdown at that time, according to WAVY, a local news station.