Mystery bundle caused explosives scare in Mount Pleasant; Alhambra Hall reopens

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A report of a suspicious packaged prompted police to shut down the area around Alhambra Hall in Mount PleasantÂ’s Old Village on Wednesday morning. A bomb squad team and other emergency personnel responded to the area shortly after 9 a.m. Watch »

MOUNT PLEASANT —A bundle on a park bench created a commotion the likes of which Old Village hadn't seen for some time. Authorities may never be able to say what it was, since they had to destroy the evidence.

A man walking his dog called police around 8:50 a.m. to report something that looked like a bundle of dynamite on a park bench, Mount Pleasant police Maj. Frank Riccio said. Officers looking through binoculars indeed spied a bundle. But they couldn't tell whether the football-sized lump was dynamite, old flares or something else altogether.

Mount Pleasant police called their Charleston counterparts for help, and the city's bomb squad arrived at the scene, Riccio said. Proceeding with deliberate caution, they dug a hole about 200 yards from the park bench where they could dispose of the bundle with kerosene. A bomb robot carried the bundle to the hole, and ignited the kerosene with a flare.

"There was no explosion," Riccio said. "We dOdn't know what it was. We handled it as though it were real.

"With it being burnt we'll never know."

By 1:30 p.m. —more than four hours after the initial report— the bundle was gone and authorities deemed Alhambra Hall safe for the public.

Read more in tomorrow's editions of The Post and Courier.