Utility BOMBgreenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread |
Spikes again! Terrorists set up shop in San Francisco, where recently there was a black-out. See thread Power OUT In San Francisco.
PGE evacuation!
Don't think baddies WON'T be plotting infiltration under the Y2K chaos. Bet the martial law folks tuck this one under their portfolio. Today, thank God for the FBI.
Bomb-Making Operation Exposed Inside Utility BuildingSAN FRANCISCO (AP) - What officials described as a ``bomb-making operation'' was discovered inside a Pacific Gas & Electric service center this morning after a curious employee stumbled upon some ammonium nitrate.
Police evacuated the building after five bags - 250 pounds - of the fertilizer that can be used in bombs were found inside a first floor locker. A 33-gallon drum of chemicals and books about bomb-making were found elsewhere in the building.
The FBI launched a search of the building, along with a fire department hazardous materials team wearing protective suits and oxygen masks.
``There's significant information, significant material to show there's a bomb-making operation going on, and so we're being very cautious now,'' police spokesman Sherman Ackerson said.
Police ordered about 30 workers out of the building and evacuated the immediate area, since the ammonium nitrate was frozen and it couldn't be determined if it had been mixed with anything to make it volatile. Ammonium nitrate, commonly used as fertilizer, was combined with fuel oil to make the 4,800-pound bomb that destroyed the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995, killing 168 people.
A PG&E worker discovered the material shortly after 7 a.m. after noticing a pool of water in the basement and following the trail to a locker on the first floor.
A spokesman for the company, Scott Blakey, said there's no reason for ammonium nitrate to be in the center, which combines office and warehouse space.
He also said there had been no recent threats against the utility, and there was no particular reason to think PG&E employees were responsible. The company has been the target of sabotage in the past, including an act of vandalism that caused a blackout in October 1997.
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-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), December 31, 1998
Diane! !!! Please do your thing, turn on your TV, report this thing! You still have all your contacts from the black-out, don't you ?! Our TV went kaput ... Thanks!Well, this is one way to start 1999 with a bang. Happy New Years, YourDoneItes, promises to be interesting times.
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-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), December 31, 1998.
The peaceful green party strikes again.
-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), December 31, 1998.
Yikes!!Just regular programming. It WILL hit the 6 o'clock news. I'll be watching.
Paul, this doesn't sound remotely "green" to me. Go FBI go!!!
Over the past few weeks there have been major anthrax scares in Southern California.
Diane *Sigh*
-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), December 31, 1998.
Leska, Still early for much reporting yet.S.F. Examiner -- Breaking News http://www.sfgate.com/examiner/
S.F Gate Web-Site FIND http://www.sfgate.com/search/
SF Gate is the web site of the Chronicle Publishing Company. Our search engine contains material from the San Francisco Chronicle, KRON, Bay TV, San Francisco Examiner and KRON-produced shows such as Bay Area Backroads, New Media News, and First Cut.
This just in ... its your same Associated Press story. San Jose Mercury News -- Breaking News http://www.mercurycenter.com/breaking/
Last updated at 2:18 p.m. PST Thursday, December 31, 1998
Bomb factoryfound inside PG&E building http://www.mercurycenter.com/breaking/docs/074254.htm
SAN FRANCISCO -- A bomb factory was discovered inside a Pacific Gas & Electric service center Thursday, complete with bomb-making manuals, ``ready-to-go explosives'' and other material of the kind that blew up the Oklahoma City federal building. ...
-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), December 31, 1998.
Diane, thank you! You are so valuable and good at responsible detective reporting. Sounds like they've found a nest of hot manure ...
-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), December 31, 1998.
They are taking it seriously! I predict for Y2K we will HAVE to mobilize the military, National Guard, ROTC, et. al. to protect the power grid. -- Diane *Big Sigh*Explosive material found along with 500 pounds of ammonium nitrate
Thursday, December 31, 1998
URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/ 1998/12/31/state1353EST0036.DTL
(12-31) 10:53 PST SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Explosive material including 500 pounds of ammonium nitrate was found in an employee's locker inside a utility building, prompting police to evacuate the area and summon the hazardous materials squad.
The area around the Pacific Gas & Electric plant in the city's Mission district was cordoned off after the explosive material turned up during a routine search, police said.
Ammonium nitrate, commonly used as fertilizer, was combined with fuel oil to make the 4,800-pound bomb that destroyed the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995, killing 168 people.
Shortly after the discovery, 30 workers at the building were evacuated and the immediate area was closed to vehicular and pedestrian traffic, said fire department spokesman Ed Campbell.
And...
Bay Area News Roundup Local news all the time Bay City News Report Thursday, December 31, 1998
URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/ 1998/12/31/roundup2.DTL
San Francisco police and fire officials are investigating chemicals found today at a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. service center in San Francisco.
A two-block radius around the center on Folsom Street in the Mission District was sealed off and about 30 PG & E workers were evacuated after discovery of some 500 pounds of ammonium nitrate in a personal locker about 8:20 a.m.
That material is not of itself explosive, but investigators later found other materials in the building.
Fire Department spokesman Lt. Ed Campbell said, " Police have found other materials that are consistent with bomb-making. " A San Francisco police spokeswoman identified one of the materials as calcium but had no information on the others discovered after a routine search by a PG & E worker turned up the ammonium nitrate.
An FBI investigator, a police bomb squad and a fire department hazardous materials team are combing the building.
-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), December 31, 1998.
Sounds like the work of Berkeley left wing radicals.
or
The Weather Underground.
or
Ted(take out the trash)Kazinski.
or
The Symbianese Liberation Army.
or
GreenPeace.
or
Save the Whales
or
A staged P.R. event to show how ever-vigilent the FBI is and to demonstrate why you will need to forego certain aspects of the Bill of Rights in the future, for the common good of course.
-- Charles R. (chuck_roast@trans.net), December 31, 1998.
Bomb factory found in San FranciscoBomb factory found in San Francisco, Power company employee in custody
ASSOCIATED PRESSSAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 31 Authorities questioned a utility worker Thursday after discovering two Pacific Gas & Electric Co. warehouses filled with bomb-making materials, including ready-to-go explosives and raw materials like those used in the Oklahoma City bombing.
Police said the worker, who was not arrested, has no local criminal record. His name was not released.
THE 44-YEAR-OLD PG&E worker was taken into custody for questioning after a warehouse was found packed with bomb-making materials and manuals. He later led investigators to a second, nearby warehouse where officials found a whole bunch more bomb-making stuff, police spokesman Sherman Ackerson said.
....
The first bomb-making operation was discovered after a PG&E employee discovered water in a warehouse basement and followed the trail. Upstairs, the worker found 250 pounds of ammonium nitrate thawing inside a storage locker.Police ordered roughly 30 workers out of the building and evacuated another across the street out of fear that the fertilizer had been mixed with volatile substances and frozen to keep it from exploding.
A 33-gallon drum of chemicals and books on making bombs were found elsewhere in the building, as were a small quantity of actual ready-to-go explosives, Ackerson said.
Theres significant information, significant material to show theres a bomb-making operation going on, and so were being very cautious now, he said.
PG&E spokesman Scott Blakey said theres no reason for ammonium nitrate to be in the center, which combines warehouse space and offices for employees who supervise the utilitys meter readers.
....
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We went to Kinko's this evening to photocopy, and the manager was talking about Y2K, and he said, "Did you know San Francisco had a black-out?" and we replied, "Yes, and PGE is in the news again today ..." Turns out this manager came from a Kinko's a block from PGE in SanFran: he was on the phone fast! We had to get to the Post Office before closing so we didn't stay to hear first-hand ...xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxx
-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), December 31, 1998.
`Ready-To-Go Explosives' - Bomb Found In San Francisco WarehouseSAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A veteran utility worker has been arrested after authorities found a bomb and enough bomb-making materials to blow up a house were discovered at two Pacific Gas & Electric Co. warehouses.
``Ready-to-go explosives'' and raw material, including calcium nitrate and more than 250 pounds of ammonium nitrate, were found Thursday at the downtown warehouses, said Special Agent Tracy Hite of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Additional evidence was found at the home of Paul Madronich, 44, who has worked at the utility for 19 years, Hite said.
.... Madronich may have had been interested in making fireworks....
The operation was discovered after a PG&E employee found water in a warehouse basement and followed the trail. Upstairs, the worker found 250 pounds of ammonium nitrate thawing inside a storage locker. Police ordered approximately 30 workers out of the building and evacuated another across the street out of fear that the fertilizer had been mixed with volatile substances and frozen to keep it from exploding.
A 33-gallon drum of chemicals and books on making bombs were found elsewhere in the building, as were a ``small quantity of actual ready-to-go explosives,'' Ackerson said.
....
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-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), January 01, 1999.
weird. hard to tell if this is a setup or not - the reporters are clueless - until it's mixed into slurry, Ammonium nitrate is just so much fertilizer. second of all, it takes quite a bit to make it explode - slurry, being, well, slurry (think of the consistency of greasy mush or sandy mud) prefers to fly away from the detonator/initiator, and not go off at all. You need compression, and a significant initiator beyond just blasting (you cannot set off slurry reliably using just caps). Of course there's also no mention of the guy posessing any caps. Location of the materials is also irrational, unless the employee had some sort of massive grudge against someone in the building?incompetent reporting? incompetent bomb making? combination of the two? possible setup?
weirdness...
Arlin
-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), January 01, 1999.
Yes, Arlin, velly odd. Who puts fertilizer in their locker anyway? Excuse my bomb-making ignorance, but doesn't this manure smell? Couldn't they have followed their noses? Are there fertilizers that don't smell? Didn't he know frozen things give off water when thawing? Didn't he think PGE would be nervous after 1997 + 1998 blackouts? 19 years w/ company ... can ppl really be that stupid?
"It's the stupidity, stupid."xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xx
-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), January 01, 1999.
Maybe he too got tired of waiting for 2000 and thought he'd run a simulation test. Nice quiet holiday weekend, low staff with hangovers, just kaboom the place, turn the lights of SanFran out for First Day 1999, start a scare, maybe cause flutters in the grid ... maybe he's lurked on too many Forums and it got to him ... maybe he's frenetically preparing Grandma's back yard and didn't have time to haul the crock'o-crap to her garden yet ... plus his hobby is "fireworks" ... maybe that other post is onto something re excuses to guard the resources ... too mind-boggling dumb to be anything deep ... hhmmm, reminds me of LewdWinceSkeaz ...xxxxxxx xxxxxxx
-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), January 01, 1999.
Let me think! This is a disinformation kinda thing. It's those "right wing wackos." Right? Kinda wonder what it would be like if people told the truth and stuff like that. Other thing...Ammonium nitrate (fertilizer)does not smell from what I recall as I was spreading it. Disinformation enthusiasts do! Why would there be a trail of water to a locker? It sounds stinky! Show me the beef!
-- Mark Hillyard (foster@inreach.com), January 01, 1999.
Hi Leska,Mark is correct in that Ammonium Nitrate doesn't smell like much of anything, and your both right in that it doesn't make sense for the suspect to have done what they claim he did. Water is sometimes used in the slurry mixing process, but the thing is that there's no slurry mentioned here, no petroleum (fuel oil would be most common), and that "33 gallon drum of chemicals"?? hmm....it's almost a textbook case of how not to successfully make a bomb while managing to do everything so wrong that untrained coworkers would become suspicious...
Arlin
-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), January 02, 1999.
The thing that I find most unusual about the whole thing is that this boy had 500 pounds of it stashed in his personal locker.I had the pleasure(?) of being around personal lockers for about 45 or so years and I have never even seen a personal locker that could hold 500 pounds of anything less dense than the heavy end of the atomic weight table stuff. Not even close.
That boy must have built one h*ll of a blivit in his locker, or that company set up some really big lockers for their maintenance troops.
Curiouser and curiouser.
S.O.B.
-- sweetolebob (La) (buffgun@hotmail.com), January 02, 1999.
Arlin & Mark, thanks. It makes it a wee bit more plausible that the fertilizer doesn't smell. But wait! The story indeed gets more bizarre. Turns out -- get this! -- that he had a profit motive because he was busy selling his bombs to the other employees!Yep, that's some crew over at PGE. Gotta keep the fun & moonlighting up. Notice the article reports this as though it's perfectly normal. Ha! As if! How many times have *your* co-workers come up to you and said, "Ppsst, ya wanna buy some bombs tonight?" "Sure, sounds fun! Wondering how I was gonna spend all that extra dough, yippee, a new hobby/entertainment? Waddya suggest we blow up?" "Hey, how 'bout that substation? Blackouts are fun, and we get overtime!" "Wow, dig it! Let's go. Here's a wad of cash, buddy. Here comes Joe + Tim + MaryAnne + Martin too, goody!"
Utility Worker Arrested On Explosive ChargesSAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A utility repairman was in custody Friday after authorities discovered bomb materials, including 250 pounds of ammonium nitrate, the same ingredient used in the Oklahoma City bombing, at his workplace.
Paul Joseph Madronich Jr., 44, enjoyed making small explosives and fireworks and did not appear to have a political agenda, according to investigators.
Police believe he was using the material for small explosives such as cherry bombs and M-80s that he sold to co-workers.
The 19-year Pacific Gas & Electric Co. employee was being held Friday on $1 million bail on three counts of possessing an explosive device.
The materials were discovered Thursday in a locker at a PG&E warehouse. Police and fire officials evacuated 75 people from the building and a facility across the street, concerned that the ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer, had been mixed with volatile substances and might explode.
Inside another locker police found a 33-gallon drum of calcium nitrate along with books on bomb making, broken flares, electronic devices and a ``small quantity of actual, ready-to-go explosives,'' police spokesman Sherman Ackerson said.
Calcium nitrate, also a fertilizer, was found at the house of Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols.
``Basically, (Madronich) was set up to make bombs,'' Ackerson said.
``If activated as an explosive, it would have destroyed a good portion of the building it was found in.''
After he was booked, Madronich led officers to ``a whole bunch more bomb-making stuff,'' at a second PG&E facility, Ackerson said.
Authorities also carted off boxes of material from Madronich's home. Assistant District Attorney Jean Daly said Madronich appeared to be motivated by profit rather than politics, selling his small explosives to co-workers who nicknamed him ``the Unabomber.''
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Hilarious!
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-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), January 02, 1999.
Course I'd like to see the guy who tried "chipping" the ice off of the floor with a hammer. Thawing it with a blow torch?Doesn't make sense though.
Amonium nitrate is explosive - but when combined as far as I understand with something like diesel fuel as an oxider/extra fuel source. If combines with water (deduced from the melted "ice" trail - fuel oil won't freeze - ever) not much happens. Also, amonium nitrate + fuel oil requires a detonator or major shock to trip off explosively - by itself (particularly if so cold it's frozen) it doesn't do much undisturbed. Still dangerous, but not as unsteady as nitrogly. or other unstable compounds.
Also - why frozen at all? San Francisco itself doesn't freeze long enough to freeze a bag of water-soaked anything, ever. So it (the bag the found) had to be kept outside long enough in the suburbs, mountains, or central valley over a cold enough period of several days immediately before it was discovered to completely freeze - without being someplace exposed to the sun to accept enough heat to thaw at midday - then be rapidly taken indoors and downtown to the PGE building to begin thawing in the locker when found.
The story makes no sense to me.
-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), January 04, 1999.
Just HOW vulnerable are the electric utilities (in your area too)? -- Diane *Big Sigh*Destructive devices in worker's locker By Ray Delgado OF THE EXAMINER STAFF Tuesday, January 5, 1999 )1998 San Francisco Examiner
URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi?file=/examiner/hotnews/stories/05/pge.dtlThe district attorney's office released new details of the case against a PG&E serviceman arrested on suspicion of storing explosives materials, saying for the first time that they also found two "destructive devices" among the evidence they seized from his workplace.
Assistant District Attorney Jean Daly would not elaborate on what kinds of destructive devices were recovered from Paul Joseph Madronich Jr.'s locker at a PG&E warehouse last Thursday, but she said they were more significant than fireworks. ...
[snip...]
... He said PG&E is monitoring the Police Department's investigation while continuing its own.
An official with the state Public Utilities Commission said it has also been monitoring the case but has not launched a separate investigation.
Because Madronich worked at a PG&E warehouse and not a power plant, PUC officials said they were reasonably satisfied that electricity distribution was not threatened, said Paul Clannon, director of the PUC's energy division.
But should the Police Department's probe conclude that PG&E management knew of the threat and did not act accordingly, the PUC might pursue an investigation, Clannon said. "The PUC will definitely be concerned if PG&E's management structure was lax in ways that threatened employee safety, public safety and the safety of the electricity distribution system," he said.
-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), January 05, 1999.