4C
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, MAY 1, 2015
PARTING SHOTS
A weekly snapshot from The Daily Astorian and Chinook Observer photographers
The White Star Cannery boiler is seen against the night sky in April. Daily Astorian photographer Josh Bessex is collecting some of his favorite photographs at the end of each
month to display online. See them at www.dailyastorian.com
JOSHUA BESSEX — The Daily Astorian
Civil War-era shell makes a big ‘boom’
it’s not going to do much,”
Wright said. “But if it’s jos-
tled, it could be quite dan-
gerous.”
The Fort Lewis Explosive
Ordnance Disposal (EOD)
unit showed up around 4
p.m. Police suggested driv-
ing the explosive to the
city’s watershed area far
from nearby neighborhoods,
but the disposal unit said the
shell shouldn’t be moved in
a vehicle.
They told Wright the
shell dated from the 1850s.
Munitions from that time
were eventually used in the
1861 to 1865 Civil War.
Emergency
personnel
closed off the State Route
100 loop while two of the
team members took turns car-
rying the explosive by hand
down Sahalee hill, about
three quarters of a mile, to
an old rock quarry. There,
they detonated it. Wright said
the explosion was very loud,
and Sahalee residents re-
ported hearing an enormous
“boom!” Team members said
the concussion might have
blown out Sahalee windows
if it had been disposed of
where it was discovered.
Fort Lewis
team safely
removes threat
from Ilwaco
neighborhood
KATIE WILSON
EO Media Group
ILWACO, Wash. — Sub-
contractors working on a
construction project in the
Sahalee neighborhood of
Ilwaco April 22 uncovered
an old, but still live artillery
shell near Klahanee Drive, a
major residential street.
It is the second such shell
found in the area in the last
three years and police and
city officials say there are
likely more still out there.
“Who knows,” said Long
Beach Police Chief Flint
Wright, “but I have no doubt
there’s others up there.”
Ilwaco Mayor Mike
Cassinelli says the city
council has no plans to order
a thorough search of Sahalee
hill and surrounding land,
though he anticipates they
will discuss ways the city
could warn contractors and
homeowners of the possibil-
ity that they might uncover a
shell during otherwise rou-
tine construction, mainte-
nance or landscaping work.
“We’re concerned but
there’s not much we can do
except tell people if they
dig (shells) up, not to throw
them to the side,” Cassinelli
said. But, he added, “We’re
not gonna go out and look
for trouble.”
Besides, he said, much of
that hill has been dug up al-
ready over the years without
incident.
The shell found last week
had been discovered by an Il-
A military setting
Casey Meling photo
An explosive coastal artillery shell discovered on the hillside of an Ilwaco, Wash., resi-
dential area during home construction roughly compared in size to the dimensions of
a man’s boot print. The shell, which may have been fired from one of the three forts that
guarded the Columbia’s entrance between the Civil War era and World War II, was dis-
posed of by a team from Joint Base Lewis-McChord.
waco resident before, but not
reported, police said. Over
the years, brush and earth had
hidden it once again.
Bomb squad
summoned
Long Beach police offi-
cers and Ilwaco Fire Station
personnel blocked off access
to the neighborhood above
Baker Bay for much of the
afternoon. A bomb-disposal
team was summoned from
Fort Lewis, a U.S. military
facility near Tacoma, to
check out the find.
Meanwhile, police, not
knowing for certain yet if
the shell was live or not, es-
tablished a 500-foot buffer
radius around the explosive.
“For the most part, we
were pretty fortunate the
homes that were right there
were unoccupied at the time,”
said Wright later. One family
did have to leave for the day,
and police allowed people
farther up the hill who had to
get to appointments to leave.
“It’s one of those things
that, as long as it’s left alone,
The setting of consider-
able military activity during
World War II, the Baker Bay
shoreline leads to an in-
stallation called Fort Cape
Disappointment during the
Civil War, set up along with
Fort Stevens on the Oregon
side to guard the river mouth
against possible Confederate
attack. Although a Confeder-
ate ship did prey on Yankee
whalers on this side of the
continent, bored gun crews
in the local area never saw
enemy action.
In June 2012, bottle hunt-
ers found what appeared to
be a bomb shell encased in
old dry clay along the Baker
Bay shoreline near Sahla-
hee. At that time, the Pacific
County Sheriff’s Depart-
ment surmised it was fired
from one of several near-
by gun emplacements. All
are now decommissioned,
though some concrete forti-
fications from the Civil War
era still exist at the cape.
Local bomb officer
Long Beach Police Of-
ficer Casey Meling who
responded to the incident
Wednesday also was the of-
ficer called out to deal with
the bomb shell found in
2012.
He said the incident on
April 22 was a “big deal, but
basically a non-event.” The
officer’s biggest concerns
were to keep people away
from the area and to make
sure nothing moved the artil-
lery shell.
Meling said the officers
received incredible help and
support from the Ilwaco Fire
Department in blocking off
the roads and securing the
area.
Aged explosives inside
old bombs and shells can re-
main dangerous for decades
and even become unstable,
blowing up without warning.
Shells from the 1850s
to even the 1950s were not
made to any real standard
and people who encounter
them now are dealing with a
huge unknown, Wright said.
Given that two such
shells have been discovered
in the area recently, Meling
and Wright anticipate they’ll
be called out again in com-
ing years.
If anyone happens upon
something they believe
could be an old bomb or
artillery shell, Wright and
Meling say they should call
911 immediately.
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