Posted on 02/15/2008 2:45:26 PM PST by The Pack Knight
RALEIGH - The explosion that injured two workers at a Raleigh scrap metal yard Tuesday morning has been traced to a collection of anti-tank rockets and projectiles mixed into a pile of debris dropped off at the Garner Road facility Feb. 7.
A Fort Bragg explosive ordnance disposal unit will resume detonating ammunition today, keeping a largely industrial stretch of Garner Road blocked off for at least a third day. Residents forced from their homes by the methodical detonations were allowed to return temporarily Wednesday night but were told they'd have to leave again by 8 a.m. today.
It's not clear how long the disposal will take, said Raleigh police spokesman Jim Sughrue. It's possible that some live ammunition was already compacted into bales, which the Army unit will have to pick apart carefully, Sughrue said.
By Wednesday afternoon, the Fort Bragg team had destroyed three 90-mm anti-tank rounds and 13 projectiles for AT-4s, portable anti-tank weapons, Fort Bragg spokesman Tom McCollum said. The team also had identified at least five more anti-tank rounds at the Raleigh Metals Processors plant that required detonating.
The fuses on the ordnance did not appear to be armed, McCollum said, although compacting it with other scrap metal could result in the type of explosion that occurred Tuesday morning.
Raleigh Metals Processors has identified the people who turned in the military ordnance along with other materials for recycling and gave their names to Raleigh police and military and federal investigators, Greg Brown, the company's CEO, said Wednesday. Brown would not disclose the names.
Brown said it was unclear why employees did not identify the live ammunition and safely separate it from the other debris. The company is not supposed to accept live ammunition, he said, though it does buy spent shells. Workers are trained to sort through scrap metal brought to the center by individuals and companies.
"I don't know how these were viewed as not being munitions," Brown said. "We clearly need to have some type of reinforced training."
Raleigh Metals Processors regularly compacts scrap metal into bales, which are then sold to steel companies and others. On Tuesday morning, some of the ammunition exploded as workers began feeding it into a baler.
Two workers were injured. One, Adrian Bravo, 27, was in good condition Wednesday at WakeMed Raleigh Campus, Brown said. The other, Isai Bravo Santiago, 33, complained of ringing in his ears and was taken to WakeMed and later discharged.
It's rare for anti-tank shells to show up at a scrap metal center, said Maj. Mark Krussow, operations officer for the 52nd Ordnance Group at Fort Gillem in Georgia.
"That's not necessarily a high-octane, super lot of explosives in those projectiles," Krussow said of the ordnance found in Raleigh. "But they are unusual to find in a metal processing plant."
Nearly a mile of Garner Road near the plant was closed to through traffic again Wednesday, from Rush Street to Newcombe Road. Police and military investigators set up their command center across the street from the scrap metal yard at the Garner Road YMCA.
Crisscrossing the street in a golf cart, members of the Fort Bragg detonation team set off six detonations beginning after 11 p.m. Tuesday. They resumed about 10:40 a.m. Wednesday. With each detonation, onlookers could see black smoke and debris that soared above the scrap yard before landing with a loud smacks that could be heard a block away.
Fire in the hole
The unit detonated rounds one by one, placing them in a small pit dug into a back lot. Metal bins surrounded the pit to ensure that any fragments shot straight up rather than laterally.
Residents at a nearby apartment complex were evacuated starting Tuesday evening, and six residents spent the night at Garner United Methodist Church, where the American Red Cross opened a shelter. Residents living as far away as East Martin Street in downtown Raleigh reported hearing Tuesday night's blasts, which continued past 2 a.m. Wednesday.
Closer to the blast zone, residents of Park Creek Apartments less than a block from the metals plant said they were caught off guard by the explosions overnight. "It was boom, shaking the whole house!" said Jakwon Hawkins, 18, as he emerged from his apartment Wednesday morning with his father, Richard Massenburg.
"You knew something was happening, but they didn't let us know it was going to be continuous bombshells like that," Massenburg said. "Our whole building shook."
Raleigh police worked with Wake County schools to set up alternate bus stops for families with children who attend Timber Drive Elementary in Garner and other area schools, though not everyone got the word. Beverly Bonds, another Park Creek Apartments resident, said she ended up driving her neighbor's children to school Wednesday morning.
"How we found out that the bombs were going to go off was on the news," Bonds said. "We saw them evacuating Biltmore Hills [apartments] on the news. Nobody came around and told us nothing."
Sughrue, the Raleigh police spokesman, said that the department used an automated phone system to notify everyone within a one-mile radius of the plant and that patrol officers also contacted area residents in person.
"I can't tell you that every door there was addressed," he said. "Obviously if we missed somebody and somebody didn't get the word, that was not our intent."
(Staff writer Sam LaGrone contributed to this report.)
It's rare for anti-tank shells to show up at a scrap metal center, said Maj. Mark Krussow, operations officer for the 52nd Ordnance Group at Fort Gillem in Georgia.
I should hope so! This is hardly the time to have explosives floating around. Someone had better be on top of this.
The last thing we need is for terrorists to be able to sneak in to the U.S. unarmed and procure all the materials they need to make IEDs right here, just because someone at Bragg is asleep oat his post.
Oh, just enough to blow up a tank.
From WRAL
Brothers Detained in Scrap Plant Ammo Case
Sanford — Two brothers have been detained in connection with the discovery of military explosives at a Raleigh scrap metal recycling plant, authorities said Friday.
Javier Gomez-Urieta and Salvador Gomez-Urieta were arrested Tuesday on immigration violations and were being held for questioning in munitions case by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, said Capt. David Smith, of the Sanford Police Department.
Members of the Sanford Police Department's Special Enforcement Unit searched a mobile home at 2725 Carver Drive in Sanford and found artillery shells in the yard similar to the ones that were dropped off at Raleigh Metals Recycling plant, Smith said. Most of the shells were spent, but at least two were live rounds, he said.
Someone threw away a perfecty good anti-tank shell? You know, in China there are starving children that have to take good tanks apart by hand.
Around 1:05pm this afternoon I heard/felt 3 explosions in Cary.
I’m about 5-6 miles from the scrap yard. Wonder if that was the ordinance.
From witnessing a live training fire at Ft. Bragg, I can imagine the amount of spent shells behind the tank firing range.
Of course getting them would require several miles of sneaking into Ft. Bragg and carrying them out.
But then illegals sneaked into the US and traversed about 1000 miles to get to Sanford, NC.
Nothing all that new here - Mexican scrap - pickers get kiled all the time sneaking on the Yuma Range Complex looking for metals. Between UXO and live fire, it ain’t a safe place to scrap-pick.....
Brass seems to be like gold in some areas.
EOD ping
Are they talking about the old 90-mm recoilless rifle? I thought that was retired long ago.
The AT-4 is only good against light targets, but could sure do some damage to a civilian target.
If this is 3rd day of the EOD’s effort that scrap yard has some explaining too do. Unless they are going through every nut, bolt and bumper .......
Hey HH did ya turn in those aluminum cans and copper ?;O)
LOL....we all had the same thought !
Too funny !......:o)
Yeah...WHAT is that about me? I must have an “aura” or something! :-)
Guilt by association with us is my bet !.......:o)
Could also be 90mm HE rounds or HEAT rounds. But they went out a long time ago, about thirty years ago.
Yeah. :-) That’s PROBABLY it! :-)
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