------- Forwarded Message From: Jeffrey and Linda Goodman To: Jason Goodman Subject: Re:"The wrong people, like kids"Only on Kauai:
The Garden Island
Thursday, August 27, 1998
Dynamite scare freezes Lihu'e;
Five sticks of dynamite old and wet, lead to fast evacuation of town center.
Lihu'e- A Kalaheo man trying to be a Good Samaritan ended up causing the evacuation of several city blocks in downtown Lihu'e (the biggest town on the island - J) Wednesday when he parked a pickup truck carrying five sticks of aging dynamite in front of the Kaua'i Police Department.
The driver of the truck, Jack Peacock of Kalaheo, said he was just trying to find somebody to take the dynamite, which he obtained at a garage sale, off his hands so it could be disposed of safely. He said he first took the dynamite to the Kalaheo Fire Station.
Firefighters saw the highly unstable nitroglycerin crystalizing around the old dynamite sticks and told him they didn't want to handle it, Peacock said. Instead, he said, they advised him to drive it to the Lihu'e Police Station. He arrived at police headquarters at about 10 AM, setting off a chain of events that closed public buildings in central Lihu'e for about 7 hours and caused the evacuation of an estimated 1,000 sturdents from nearby Wilcox Elementary School.
Officers also moved workers out of the courthouse, the public library, the state office building, the health office, the old county building and its annex. Officers knocked on doors of homes near the police station and told property owners to leave the area.
Explosive ordnance disposal team arrived from Schofield on O'ahu (Schofield is a military base; Oahu is the next island over, where Honolulu is - J) and set off the dynamite in a cane field. They kept the wood box the dynamite had been stored in as a souvenir.
Dynamite is sawdust soaked in nitroglycerin. As it ages, gravity pulls the Nitroglycerin down and it seeps out and crystalizes. KPD Lt. Les Michael said the dynamite sticks were moist, indicationg they were unstable and could have gone off. The raw nitroglycerin can be detonated by impact. Peacock said he dropped the box several times after he purchased it and, since it didn't blow up, figured it was safe to transport in the back of a truck.
Police Chief George Freitas, who has been trying for years to get the county to build him a new police headquarters, quipped, "I told them they could blow it in place." At about 10 am, Freitas said Peacock parked the truck--marked with the name of his employer, Na Pale Explorer, a tour boat firm--in front of police headquarters. A police cadet talked to the Kalaheo man about the dynamite. The cadet looked at the dynamite, looked at the 200 gallons of boat fuel Peacock was carrying in the back of the truck and rushed into the police station. The Schofield bomb disposal experts placed the dynamite in a metal container filled with transmission fluid to absorb the shock if there was a detonation. They placed it in a hole in a cane field and set it off. Peacock said he got the dynamite at a garage sale in Lawa'i on Sunday when he bought some other antiques. He said he became concerned about the safety of the old dynamite sticks and decided to turn them in. "People are making a big deal out of nothing." Peacock said. "I brought the stuff in because I didn't want the stuff to get into the hands of the wrong people, like kids."
------- End Forwarded MessageWhat I find especially amusing is that fifteen years ago, another guy did exactly the same thing with a pair of rusting "land mines" he found out on the beach. Those turned out to be truck brake drums, though...