There’s hardly anything scarier than school shootings, so last week’s hoax affecting schools in Ilwaco and elsewhere in the region sent adrenaline pumping in police stations, classrooms, homes and newsrooms.

The hoaxster committed a contemptible act that put lives at risk by diverting law enforcement away from their regular important work, sending them rushing to Ilwaco. This wasn’t a first for this kind of dangerous societal vandalism. In April 2015, Long Beach Elementary received an anonymous call using technology to hide both the voice and the phone number, generating a strong police response. Many students sheltered at the Chinook Observer. A similar incident happened in February 2016, prompting law officers to evacuate Ocean Beach School District students, following a lockdown that was initiated in response to a phone threat.

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We’re living in a strange time, one which can sometimes even intrude into our usually pleasant communities. It’s a shame we have to take worst-case scenarios into account, but we must.

This type of hoax is particularly heinous considering we live in a time when literally any school — and all other American settings — could genuinely become the target of deadly violence. Each of these malicious incidents should be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

It’s worth remembering that such harmful and disruptive threats aren’t a purely 21st century phenomenon. In 1980 and 1981, for example, there were a spate of bomb threats against Ilwaco High School — and, in one instance, Sid’s Market. An adolescent girl was eventually arrested and convicted in one case.

Whereas such actions might once have sprung from as simple a motive as getting out of a math quiz, today’s nightmarish shooting threats are harder to understand. Hunger for attention? Radical or anarchical fantasies? Anger at normative society? Some kind of twisted competition to see who can cause the worst disruption? A diversion so some other crime can be committed amidst the turmoil?

Such incidents — real shootings and hoaxes alike — bolster the need to consider countermeasures, such as assigned campus police and gunshot-listening devices that can quickly tell real threats from pretend ones. Ocean Beach schools have invested in various security upgrades, but all have ground-level windows that might provide easy ingress to a determined attacker. Any eventual rebuild or relocation of schools obviously must take enhanced safety into account.

We’re living in a strange time, one which can sometimes even intrude into our usually pleasant communities. It’s a shame we have to take worst-case scenarios into account, but we must. Advance strategizing by law enforcement, preparatory drills in schools and hardening facility security are sad but entirely necessary.

Thanks to the county’s police agencies, local city and utility workers who controlled campus access, and to the teachers, students and staff who calmly navigated this latest weird challenge.