Have you ever been asked to leave your home because someone found a bomb lying around? It’s kinda weird.
We recently had a cold front blow down here to us in Kemah. When the wind comes from the North it drains the water out of the lake - sort of pushes it out to sea. The floating docks sink way down. That was the first thing I noticed that morning. Since we also had a full moon and tides are affected by lunar movement we had a VERY very low tide and a very low dock, almost resting on the mud bottom. It was the lowest I’ve ever seen in the four years I’ve been living here on my sailboat Prodigal.
Anyway, I was out last week on the dock when I ran into the dock manager. He asked whether I was “coming or going?” (this is unusual – the question, not the seeing people part) I asked him why? What’s happening?
He directed me over to the edge of the parking lot, where you look down at the docks and showed me The Bomb. It’s like what you would expect if someone said an old WWII bomb got dropped from a plane and it landed right between the dock and the parking lot. It was just sitting down in the mud, laying on it’s side with it’s fins and propeller lying there.
NOT LIKE THIS ONE..
LIKE THESE. it looked like these. (the object - the device looked like these!)
[One of the marina workers was out that morning cleaning up trash around the docks. This is normal. Finding a bomb is ab-normal. As far as I can remember we’ve never had a bomb here. not at MY marina! It’s just not what’s up.]
Well they called the Police, the FBI, the Texas Rangers, the Houston Bomb Squad, the Houston Harbor Patrol, the Coast Guard, the local Kemah Fire Department, the Army, The Air force and everyone else they could think of. Then we all waited. Imagine all the conversations about who has jurisdiction…. can't you just imagine the phone ringing at the Army base asking about who is working today with the best knowledge about bombs from WWII. on the ground at the Marina were media crews and helicopters circling (all held at 'a safe distance')
I couldn’t come home till ‘it’ was removed. They put up Police tape and all stood around looking down at it. so from about noon till after 8pm I was homeless. The news I got was that the “explosion area is 50 acres” and my boat is about half an acre away from this. Prodigal sits down 9 slots on the J dock.
I watched a cluster of law persons standing around looking at it. (envision a road crew. One guy with a shovel and 2 flagmen, 5 foremen all standing around while three trucks sit idle waiting for something to happen.) after 6 hours they got a fork lift over to carefully lift it. I saw 3 bomb squad guys lying on their bellies on the dock looking down at it. it turns out it was a dud. Anything I write now is pure speculation as I never saw anything in print about it. (see attached below) but I did see the device. It had fins and a propeller. It looked like an aerial bomb.
I sleep better now knowing that there are no bombs nearby. Have a safe Happy New Year! xo skip
Kemah Boardwalk Evacuated in Harmless Bomb Scare
A harmless device spotted in the water off a Southeast Texas marina led to the area being evacuated for several hours.
The device was spotted late Wednesday off the Kemah Boardwalk, southeast of Houston on Galveston Bay. Kemah emergency management coordinator Bill Kerber says the device looked to some like a bomb.
The boardwalk was emptied while police divers investigated. Divers found what appeared to be a device once used for military training. It appears to have been lost from an old salvage yard.
Kerber says the device will be scrapped.
