Dynamite scare turns out to be empty threat

Danette Goulet & Jennifer Kho

COSTA MESA -- Police evacuated about 1,500 people from a Costa Mesa

neighborhood Monday afternoon after the discovery of what was first

believed to be a 50-pound box of dynamite stored in an old shed across

the street from Whittier Elementary School.

The box, however, turned out to be empty.

The container in question was uncovered around noontime by a man who

was cleaning out the shed for a friend, Eudora Britt. Britt’s estranged

husband, Bob Britt, once lived in the house on West 18th Street but had

passed away about six months ago, said Lt. John FitzPatrick of the Costa

Mesa Police Department.

“It was an expensive [but] good thing,” FitzPatrick said. “When you

put in all that time, energy and adrenaline, you’re expecting something,

so it was somewhat anticlimactic. But, of course, the safety of residents

comes first. When we’re dealing with a bomb, we have to err on the side

of caution.”

Among those evacuated were the nearly 600 children at the elementary

school.

Within half an hour of the discovery, officials had been notified and

the school’s disaster training was put to use.

Children were removed from classrooms and ushered to the edge of the

property -- as far from danger as possible.

“We have a bucket of things to keep the kids occupied -- books and

things,” said Sharen Gasior, a kindergarten teacher at Whittier. “We’ve

been with the kids the whole time.”

Children who take the bus home were put on their buses and sent home.

Parents of students who walk or stay for after-school programs were

called immediately to pick up their children.

“I didn’t know what was happening. They just said it was an emergency

and I had to come pick up my brother, Ryan,” said Janette Cook, 17, who

rushed to the school for her 8-year-old brother. “My parents weren’t

home, so I left a note.”

Janette’s mother, Madelene, was one of hundreds who rushed frantically

to the school, unsure of what was happening.

“I got really scared,” she said. “I didn’t know what was going on.”

A line of siblings, parents and caregivers wound around the school as

officials carefully accounted for each student before allowing them to

leave.

“We’re literally signing kids out,” said Mike Fine, the Newport-Mesa

school district’s assistant superintendent of business services. “We want

to account for every child and make sure none wander over there.”

While school officials were sending children home, police were going

door to door, ordering residents living within half a mile of the area to

evacuate.

Residents reacted with a mixture of disbelief, fear and irritation.

“I thought it was a meth lab or something,” Tyray Simmerman, an

employee of Boatswain Locker, Inc., said of the evacuation. “Just because

of what I hear from this neighborhood, I expected drugs, gangs, but not

dynamite.”

Residents were taken to the Costa Mesa Senior Center, where the Orange

County chapter of the American Red Cross provided food and drinks to

evacuees.

Before officials had determined that the box did not pose a threat,

nearly 10 different agencies and emergency services departments were

called to the scene.

Initially, police were concerned about the suspected dynamite because

they believed it was about 20 years old. Many explosives become more

dangerous with age, FitzPatrick said.

“One reason is it’s more volatile. As dynamite gets older, the

nitroglycerin forms bead pockets that are sensitive to heat, shock and

friction,” he said. “Any of that can cause it to detonate.”

Britt told police that her husband had been a coal miner, so officers

initially believed the suspected explosives might be related to his work.

At one point, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department bomb squad went

into the shed and sprayed the box with a neutralizing chemical. A robot

was then deployed to retrieve the box from a high shelf, where it had

been stored.

Helene Dillon, an 18th Street resident, said she was relieved to hear

the box was empty.

“It really scared me,” she said. “What if it had been dynamite and it

had detonated? I’m glad it was nothing. The police did what they had to

do and cleared everybody out, and I’m glad they took those precautions.

“I just couldn’t believe it. Costa Mesa is so quiet and, I mean, this

is really news.”