Mystery missile destroyed

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Florida
THE NEWS-PRESS
Mystery missile destroyed
Officials seek source of explosive
By Sarah Lundy, slundy@news-press.com
March 19, 2004

Authorities are trying to figure out how an 8-foot missile found its way
to a Fort Myers metal scrap yard, sparking an emergency response by
local, state and military officials.

"It will probably be a difficult task," said Larry Long, spokesman for
the Southwest Florida Domestic Security Task Force. "We have agents from
the task force and the state fire marshal's who are out right now
following up on leads to figure out where the missile came from."

The discovery came about 3 p.m. Tuesday when a Garden St. Iron & Metal
Inc. worker blow-torched the middle of what looked like a piece of
corroded steel and aluminum pipe.

Sparks flew.

Smoke shot out the end of the device.

Workers yelled over the radio to Garden St. President Robert Weber, who
was working in a crane nearby.

Weber quickly moved the crane's arm to grab the explosive cylinder as it
scooted across the ground. Weber put the missile in a rain puddle in an
effort to douse the sparks.

"It didn't faze it," he said. "It started hissing and made a
jet-enginelike noise."

Afraid the heat would crack the cement, Weber moved the crane so it
would hold the missile about 2 feet above the ground as it fizzled out.

"I didn't know what it was," he said. "It just looked like a piece of
pipe to me."

Weber called the Tice fire department to ask what to do with it. Tice
passed word on to the Southwest Florida Bomb Squad, which sent someone
to inspect it.

"That's when everybody started showing up," Weber said.

Deputies cleared 300 feet around the missile, which was in the Garden
St. scrap yard off Metro Parkway just south of Hanson Street.

About 9:30 p.m., two members of the U.S. Army's 766th Explosive Ordnance
Disposal Unit, based at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, arrived. The
unit responds throughout Florida when suspected military ordnance is
discovered.

"When they informed us that it may contain an explosive, that's when my
mentality changed," Weber said. "It wasn't funny anymore."

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.news-press.com/news/local_state/040318missle.html

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