Alerts canceled after Army experts declare object found at substance-abuse facility ‘not a real explosive device’
Fairbanks police urged residents and businesses in an area near Pioneer Park to evacuate Thursday morning after a worker at a nearby substance-abuse rehab facility found what appeared to be a bomb. The evacuation was later called-off after experts determined the object was fake.
Police spokesperson Teal Soden says the action was taken out of an abundance of caution.
“When we get a call like that where someone says it appears to be a real bomb then you want to make sure the area is safe,” she said in a Thursday afternoon interview.
Police called for the evacuation at around 8 a.m. after an employee at the Sobering Center on the 1300 block of Moore Street found what appeared to be an explosive device in the backpack of a person who was staying at the facility. A photo of the object taken by the employee shows what appears to four sticks of dynamite and a timer taped together.
But members of Fort Wainwright’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit, or EOD, checked the object and said it wasn’t a real bomb.
“And that’s why we did ask people to leave the area until Fort Wainwright EOD could come out and verify it was not a real explosive device,” Soden said.
Authorities then canceled the evacuation, two-and-a-half hours after it was initiated. By then the Fairbanks Emergency Communications Center had issued several alerts by text message, phone call, email and social-media posts urging area residents and businesses within a quarter-mile of the Sobering Center to evacuate.
In response, the Fairbanks Senior Center was evacuated. The Fairbanks North Star Borough closed Pioneer Park for about 90 minutes and re-routed the MACS transit Red Line Route for a couple of hours.
Soden says the person who owned the backpack was not arrested, because it was searched while the person was sleeping -- and because the person didn’t make any threats.
“Nobody’s being charged with a crime at this time,” she said, “and so we can’t release any information on them.”
Soden says Fairbanks police are not further investigating the incident.
