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Fishermen find old cannonball off Castle Island; State Police blow it up
By adamg on Thu, 03/26/2015 - 11:17am
The cannonball. Photo by Capt. John Greland, C-6.
State Police report that, after consultation with the Navy, their bomb squad blew it up, shortly before noon.
The thing could date back to the Civil War, but State Police say they didn't want to take any chances:
Some cannonballs are filled with powder. If so, still could be an explosive capability.
Bomb-squad members buried the cannonball under a sand berm before detonating it (Photo by State Police):
Boston Fire Department units staged at the McCormack Bathhouse just in case. Boston police officers helped keep pedestrians away. Local TV stations were asked to pull their helicopters at least a mile away.
Boom! Capt. Greland videoed the detonation:
Detonated! pic.twitter.com/4mXmoNxz1W
— John GrelandBPD (@captaingreland) March 26, 2015
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Comments
One would think that the
One would think that the State Police, of all people, would know the difference between "ordinance" and "ordnance", but apparently not.
Similar to...
folks who've served in the Army and can't spell "sergeant."
I don't get it
The story describes a cannonball being discovered and blown up. It's a round ball of metal. Was this a shell or something?
Did you miss the part
in the State Police Twitter link about "filled with powder."
In fairness, though ...
I just updated the original post with new info from State Police. my original post was pretty barebones.
So noted
Have revised my post to reference the MSP Twitter feed, where I got the "filled with powder" information from before you updated your post.
To be fair to myself
That info wasn't on the twitter feed when I posted my comment, it just said they blew up a cannonball.
In summary, we all posted too soon.
Or, as I say
SPSF - Shouldn't post so fast.
Hold it...
WHAT THE HELL IS A CANNONBALL DOING ON CASTLE ISLAND?
The cannonball was first
The cannonball was first tazed and ordered to "STOP RESISTING", explosives were the next logical step.
But how could it possibly not resist?
The outer shell is oxidized!
It looks like...
..the cheese strata they used to serve in the cafeteria.
Wrong Photo Linked [at this time]
Ah so that explains why the green line is so unreliable as they are blowing up cannonballs under the tracks.
ah-ha
I was wondering myself how a green line trolley pic ended up in this article....
This story is
just blowing up on Twitter.
Har har.
Sitting in a wishing well
blown to hell ... crash ...
What the F*%^ did THAT just cost us?
Attention fisherman: Next time you pull one of those up, please just drop it back overboard and call it a day.
Not much
Compared to it going off during high season when crowds are present. Or, if submerged, taking out a commercial vessel.
Personally, I don't care what
Personally, I don't care what it cost us (assuming it's a reasonable amount). Better then killing or injuring some people.
Well let's see...
You have "Boston Fire Department units staged at the McCormack Bathhouse" (note that it's plural). Plus TV news choppers (someone's paying for them) plus all those guys on the beach and whoever dug that big whole. And then the cost of whatever they used to blow this thing up. It's looks like an old inert, cheese-covered, ball of metal. Leave it be in the bottom of the ocean.
Cheaper than...
...a LNG tanker exploding in the harbor. Which I don't think is likely with this, but I don't really know that much about ordnance, and neither do you. When the answer is, "I think, but I don't know," the correct thing to do is err on the side of caution, wouldn't you agree?
And how much of that is a
And how much of that is a fixed cost? Might not be as expensive as we make it out to be.
This was found on land, not in the sea
according to the Globe report.
it looks like...
the last time my roommate tried making a pizza. (burned cheese)
Damn British just won't let
Damn British just won't let it go
British?
Judge Garrity was sailing by Castle Island one summer day in 1974...
If you didn't rtell me what that was . . . .
. . . it looked delicious. Kind of like a lasagna
State Police said the
If it was inert, how was it detonated?
I'm adderley confused.
(mercy, mercy, mercy, that was such a bad pun I'm surprised Adam didn't have it in the headline)
Typically they use another explosive device.
Sometimes you have a device that you suspect of being explosive, but you don't want to poke at it too much, because, hey, it might blow up. One way to resolve the issue definitively is to (gently) strap your own remote control explosive to the mystery item, back way the heck up, put on your safety goggles, and press the red button. Now you have a pile of debris that should be safe to poke at. I think this is sometimes referred to as controlled detonation or preemptive detonation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomb_disposal