What To Do If You Ever Hear A 'Code Blue' At Walmart

Though it may be rare, the words "code blue" coming out of the intercom at Walmart are not unheard of and it seems that it's the type of alert that has the potential to close down business and dismiss the staff for the day, per one Redditors experience.

Walmart uses a variety of coded announcements with numbers, colors, and specific phrases, and they do this to convey information that is relevant to the staff. These codes (especially the color codes) also affect Walmart shoppers and could signify dire and potentially life-threatening emergencies, such as code brown.

Walmart uses color codes rather than stating the emergency plainly because the news of a fire or hostage situation, for example, could trigger mass panic among customers (per Broken Secrets). The latter would create chaos and undermine the strategies in place to deal with the emergency. As such, these codes telegraph the exigency to the staff, who then repurpose their function at work into actions relevant to the crisis (like evacuating customers).

According to one Redditor, a "code blue" was effective at their branch in 2017. The only action taken was that the doors were shut and the bomb squad called. And not all reactions are as mild. An individual in the comment thread said, "evacuation is probably based on threat credibility."

"Code blue" to Walmart, signifies a bomb threat, per Quora, and employees will respond by reporting to their managers. "Code blue" may be used with another stipulation to designate the source of the threat. The latter likely means that the area where the suspected device is needs to be evacuated while the authorities are summoned. "Someone left a backpack in the parking lot at our store had the bomb squad come, it was just an old backpack," was another Redditor's Walmart experience.

Your responsibility as someone privileged with this knowledge will be first, to remember why this information is coded, (so that panic does not break out among the customers) and second, to keep your composure. Do not take it upon yourself to share the true meaning of "code blue," as opposed to "code red." Instead, look for directions from the staff and act accordingly, per Query Sprout.