Ahhh! A loose plastic bag! Call the bomb squad!

[elfs]

Bomb scare in downtown Seattle.

This morning my commute utterly sucked. There was a bomb scare in downtown Seattle at the Federal building. Some idiot had left a package next to the mailboxes. Police described it later as a "canvas bag inside a plastic bag." So even the original story wasn't right: this was just some homeless person's forgotten cast-off.

It completely shut down all traffic around the Federal building, which means shutting down 1st & Western Aves, from around 6am to 8am. That created a horrific snarl and redirected buses off their route, including mine. I had to walk around the damn scene, up two blocks and over, to catch my bus to the office. I was a half hour late.

Set of six photos here.

Comments

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

Hey, that bag could have held anything, man! Anything at all. Terrorist poisons. A nucular bomb. A hundred Jihadists in a bus. Who knows?

[sirfox.livejournal.com]

I remember a comment from somebody saying that terrorists don't need any sophisticated bio/chem terror items. They could paralyze an entire city by just kicking and open 55 gallon drum (painted with "ANTHRAX" in big, yellow letters) half full of flour out of the back of a truck on the bay bridge, the investigation, panic, and cleanup would be grabbing headlines for days, and all with a budget of less than $200, including the truck rental.

I don't know if it's better that we over-respond like this, or worse.

[hugh-mannity.livejournal.com]

Back in the 1970s when the IRA was blowing up London landmarks, I was working at St. Thomas' Hospital -- right across the river from the Houses of Parliament. We had several bomb scares in the area -- usually only resulting in small detours for a couple of hours during which the hospital would be on standby for casualties.

Until one day they discovered a suspicious package in one of the underground tunnels linking the various hospital buildings.

Did they evacuate the hospital? Nope.
Close all the OP clinics and send people home? Nope
Close the ER so it would be available for casualties? Nope.

They closed off the corridor while a couple of guys from the bomb squad investigated. Which took about 90 minutes from first report to end of emergency.

It turned out to be a large cardboard box of plastic cups which had fallen unnoticed off the back of one of the little electric delivery carts they used to ship supplies around the place.

The only reason I knew anything about it was because I tried to go down that corridor just as the bomb squad showed up.

This mind you during a time when car bombs, package bombs, bombs in Harrods, were an almost daily occurrence: This one (http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1973/dec/18/bomb-incidents-london) went off just as the bus I was on passed the entrance to the street. Shook the bus, but didn't do it any damage.

I don't think the massive street closings and security theatre that surrounds incidents like the one you were inconvenienced by today do any good. They just make people unnecessarily afraid and insecure.

Oh. Wait... They're exactly what TPTB want -- frightened people are easier to keep in line.

[whatthehay.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the pictures and information. I work in the Jackson Federal Building, About 7:30am they came over the intercom and announced that the First Avenue entrance was closed until further notice.

We could barely see the roped off street on 1st and Marion.

No one told us what was going on and then announced the entrance was open again.

All in a day's work.