E > 10 MeV ions observed in gradual solar energetic particle (SEP) events are attributed to acceleration at shocks driven by coronal mass ejections (CMEs), but it has been suggested that such SEPs may also result from acceleration in the magnetic reconnection of coronal arcades following CMEs. The arcade SEPs could escape the corona along open field lines, but those components of SEP events would be difficult to distinguish from shock SEPs. We examine large solar soft X-ray arcades and metric

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... ise storms in the western hemisphere which should be favorable for the production of arcade SEP events observed at 1 AU. Besides 5 arcades possibly associated with 24 < E < 28 MeV SEP events, we also find 14 arcades in active regions and 16 outside active regions with no detectable SEP increases. This negative result for the 30 arcades is evidence that arcades are not sources of escaping SEPs.