I came to work about an hour and a half ago. We had to zig zag our way through sections of road and sidewalk blocked by police tape. There were cops EVERYWHERE. We made it inside right before they closed down the block and locked us inside.
Evidentially, someone had left a suitcase next to a sidewalk bench. That coupled with what the news called a “reliable source claiming a terrorist threat” resulted in the bomb squad deciding to blow the thing up.
We (me, my sister, the HRM lady, two another employees, and our Director (THE Head Honcho)) grabbed our coffee and took our places in front of the windows looking down. We watched the bomb squad wire the thing up then take their places behind a wall. A fire engine blasted his horn a few times and the cops and security guards got behind their cars or cement pillars. We decided that maybe we should move back from the floor to ceiling windows a bit.
We knew the blast was coming, no secret there, but when it did my sister screamed LOUD and almost made our Director shit his pants as he flung halfway across the room.
I don’t know what was better, the pants peeing laugh I got from that or the awesome explosion.
I first thought this was going to be a thread about Atari games, but that’s much cooler.
Not that Kaboom! wasn’t a great game, it was (don’t get me wrong - I loved the Atari paddle games). But bomb squad detonations have got to take the cake.
Yeah, we realized that we probably should move back a bit when we saw the cops ducking behind their cars. At least this time we were a little quicker than the time when we all ran to look out the windows at the cool tornado.
Nothing like a big bang to start the day. A girl’s got to blow those cobwebs away somehow !
Do you have those cute robots on wheels that get sent to investigate suspect packages (“Excuse me Sir, Is that a suspect package or are you just pleased…”) with drilling things and camera’s and, detonators and all kinds of great stuff . They’re real boys toys !
*Salt Lake City Police blow up an abandon suitcase left by a bench in Downtown Salt Lake this morning.
It turns out the blue samsonite was filled with clothes and personal belongings – police don’t know who left it sitting on the sidewalk. Security for Qwest Communications spotted the luggage outside their building about 4:45 this morning and called police.
But, officers say the biggest struggle they faced after they arrived on scene this morning: getting pedestrians to stay back, and workers in nearby buildings to get away from windows. *
oh diane, you had me scaring the cats re: the tornado. ooooohhhh, look at the pretty tornado!!!
here in philly they had an abandoned “thingy” in the greyhound bus station. it was in one of the lockers, they pop open when the money runs out. the people at the station take out the stuff, open it and if it is usable (clothes) they give it to the homeless shelters. this time they looked in the “thingy” ( i can’t remember if it was a suitcase or a duffle.) it contained a HUGE amount of c4 and had demo wires around it. no detonator though. the bus station now calls the bomb squad to check abandoned “thingys.”
this happened about a week or two after the eleventh. yeah, we are a bit calm, yet wary here.
