Seattle - Port terminal evacuated over possible bomb

Seattle Post-Intelligencer (excerpt) ^ | August 16, 2006

[HAL9000]

Excerpt -

Bomb squads are responding to Terminal 18 on Seattle's waterfront after a canine bomb team found possible explosives in a container, the Coast Guard said this afternoon.

~ snip ~

[cmsgop]

I Blame Larry Storch

[tdewey10]

Container from Pakistan. Hmmmm.
Was supposed to be full of "oily rags" -- who ships "oily rags" in 41-foot containers?

[tdewey10]

Need an Aug 22 ping list...

[pissant]

I blame Mickey Dolenz!

[NonValueAdded]

A bimb? /Clouseau

[txhurl]

Q: How many captains does it take to run a tanker aground?

A: 1 and one fifth.

[PrivateIdaho]

The container was supposed to hold oily rags but inspectors found objects that were not on the inventory...

Geez - that alone sounds dangerous.

[tdewey10]

Never underestimate the power of an oily rag.

[geopyg]

I thought that was what you WERE supposed to do with oily rags - put them in metal containers. I guess ol' Muhamaoud just got a little carried away!

(Seeing as I'm about 10 miles downwind - I hope this is nothing!).

[MineralMan]

Well, since it's a shipping container, I'll take it seriously and be watchful.

Unlike most of these stories, which end up being a salami sandwich in a briefcase, this one could possible be the real deal.

[Argus]

Oily ragheads would be even more dangerous.

[ARealMothersSonForever]

Nobody is probing security response. The regular crowd will shuffle in momentarily, to dismiss early reports.

[geopyg]

Perhaps "oily rags" is an un-PC term one of the cops used?

[tdewey10]

Especially if they had lots of bomb materials and lots of cellphones. Oh wait a minute...

[GeorgiaDawg32]

I blame Rove, who did it at Bush's order..(sarc/off)

[MPJackal]

Oily rag-heads?

[geopyg]

Regarding the cellphones - I just read in the paper where the two muslims from Dearborn with 1000 cellphones were just released on $1000 bail!!??

[steveo]

What kind of bomb is it?

[tdewey10]

$1 per phone?

[Normal4me]

It just another coincidence people. Move along now, nothing to see here. The gubmint is in control. Spend, spend, spend! Do your part to keep the economy bustling~

/goes outside to stare at the sun

[tdewey10]

So far all we have is possible explosive material.

[ARealMothersSonForever]

pingaling

[tdewey10]

Cleary the whole JonBenet thing was a diversion from this /sarc

[TomGuy]

Container from Pakistan. Hmmmm. Was supposed to be full of "oily rags" -- who ships "oily rags" in 41-foot containers?

Maybe it lost something in the translation and was meant to read: "full of oily ragheads".

[dawn53]

Actually today, Aug 16th was to be the day the plane bombs were to have taken place.

I remembered the date because my husband and son had to fly today, and I imagined how I would have felt if they had been flying and planes had started blowing up. Also, we talked about how it would have ruined their vacation because their flight would have been grounded somewhere.

[pointsal]

What is the stated freight charge for oily rags?

Are they compressed in bundles or just loose in the container?

Do these HSA knuckleheads have a clue?

[PennsylvaniaMom]

No, no, no...the panic attack on the flight into Dulles (from London that was diverted to Boston)...THAT was the diversion. Now move along...go buy a car, or an appliance this evening to keep the economy humming.

[massgopguy]

Darn, and Ed Markey was just on saying what a lousy job CBP was doing.

[Post-Neolithic]

Study: Nuclear Blast At Port Could Kill 60,000

Coinky Dink?

[SpinnerWebb]

who ships "oily rags" in 41-foot containers?

I have a friend who works undercover auto theft here in Houston. He's had to inspect containers at the port before. He swears that people will buy and ship anything.

Metal chips, P.E.T. pellets, those white plastic lawn chairs from Wal-Mart... but the worst one he ever opened was FULL of raw cow hides... hair, meat residue, everything... on a hot, humid Houston afternoon. Yum.

[NavyCanDo]

A port worker who was evacuated called local radio and he said the shipping containers had their custom seals broken and the bomb sniffing dogs were going crazy. He said in all the years working at the port terminal he never seen them act like that. The discovery of the broken seals was at the Xray boom where they run the containers through.

[pageonetoo]

[HairOfTheDog]

What is the stated freight charge for oily rags? Are they compressed in bundles or just loose in the container? Do these HSA knuckleheads have a clue?

I don't know... but since you don't know the answers to your questions either, perhaps you aren't as qualified to call them 'knuckleheads' as you think!

[tdewey10]

According to KIRO TV may be two containers. Their story is confusing -- http://www.kirotv.com/index.html says 2. But the story only references one.

[CougarGA7]

My question is why do we import oily rags. I make them myself everytime I change my oil.

[HAL9000]

Thanks for the update, NCD. Please keep us posted.

[tdewey10]

http://www.king5.com/localnews/stories/NW_081606WABterminal18EL.6e187a5.html

Two suspect containers.

[HAL9000]

Live video feed on CNN Pipeline #2.

[MineralMan]

This might not be oily rags at all. We all know how badly the media screws things up. This could be a shipment of OIL rags or some other kind of rag.

Rags are an industrial item. I can see the possibility of a container of them coming from Asia.

Could be that "oily rags" is just a misunderstanding.

[NavyCanDo]

See my post 32. The Port worker said 2 containers.

[tdewey10]

Anything new from the feed?

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

Never mind... just a claustrophobic dock worker. Back to work, everyone.

[Normal4me]

The bigger question is WHY are they shipping oily rags? Pakistan must not have any washing machines? Talk about sending the laundry out!

[nwctwx]

I don't think dogs are trained to "smell" nuclear weapons.

[HairOfTheDog]

Could be that "oily rags" is just a misunderstanding.

Agreed. All we know is that there's a story, and a media who value being first much more than they value being accurate.

[tdewey10]

Nuclear weapons require conventional explosives to detonate.

[cmsgop]

[Ainast]

I'm clueless on how to make a nuclear bomb but doesn't it need an explosive charge of some sort to make it start exploding?

[MineralMan]

In checking, Pakistan is one of the countries that manufactures rags for industrial and other uses. They ship them all over the world.