Today I was on the phone with the city manager of Burbank and he told me there was a bomb scare at City Hall. Mind you, City Hall is pretty much across the street from my office. So to my mind, if there’s a bomb scare at City Hall, there’s a bomb scare at my office. But because he said “bomb scare” rather than just “bomb,” I felt secure in leaving out the scared part too, assuming aloud that it was a prank or a screw-up.

“No, it’s real,” he said. That caught my attention.

And indeed, it was real. Here’s what happened:  a city employee who works at the jail had a World War II large-caliber ammunition round laying around and wasn’t sure if it was still armed. So here’s what he did:  He drove it to the jail, which is behind City Hall, and asked others what they thought. Seeing large undetonated ammunition from the days before Eisenhower was president, they did what we all would do:  freak out momentarily, then call the bomb squad. Ultimately, it was decided that the device was inert and nothing exploded, accidentally or intentionally.

Note to anyone reading this:  If you have large undetonated ammunition, or mines, or grenades, really any sort of explosive device, and especially leaking sticks of dynamite, do not drive it to City Hall environs and show it around for an opinion. Leave it where it is and then call in others to consult about it right where it is.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 7th, 2010 at 11:16 pm and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.