THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, August 9, 1994 TAG: 9408090424
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA AND MARGARET TALEV, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: COROLLA LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines
Several wooden crates, labeled as explosives, that washed onto the beaches around this resort community over the weekend had been tossed into the sea by National Guard helicopter crews who said they were trying to save taxpayers money when bad weather disrupted gunnery practice.
The beaches were cleared when the boxes drifted ashore, but military officials said Monday they were empty and posed no threat.
``It was nothing more than debris. It's cardboard and plywood,'' Capt. S.K. Satterlee of Camp Pendleton, Va., said. ``There are no rockets in those boxes, I assure you.''
The crates were tossed into the water as targets, officials said, when heavy seas prevented a boat from towing targets needed for gunnery practice in the Atlantic.
The five-foot-long boxes contained black cardboard cylinders that resemble huge paper towel rolls.
As many as 15 crates were lost, said Marshall Cherry, chief of operations for the Corolla Fire and Rescue Department. ``We have so far retrieved six,'' he said Monday, adding that he expected others to drift ashore.
About 2,000 residents and vacationers were moved back from Corolla beaches about 4 p.m. Sunday after a lifeguard pulled a crate ashore in a heavily populated area.
Corolla rescue officials said they had no reason to doubt there were four live warhead rockets inside, as marked on the crates, especially because the waterlogged contents appeared to meet the 140-pound written specifications on the box.
But Satterlee said the boxes were ``nothing more than trash that we'd throw into the trash can when we're done with them.''
National Guardsmen do not usually use crates for target practice, Satterlee said. Saturday afternoon's scheduled practice - about 10 nautical miles southeast of Virginia Beach - called for a small boat to deploy targets that the Guardsmen would shoot from their helicopters.
Satterlee said plans had to be changed when choppy waters proved too strong for the boat. He said officers were not sure they would be able to carry out the exercise.
After getting approval from the Navy, Satterlee said, the helicopter crews dropped the worthless boxes into the ocean ``because we were trying to save the government a little money.
``What we expected was that it was not going to be washed ashore. They were going to wash out to sea or we were going to sink them,'' he said. ``The weather (forecast) was telling us that the current was going to take the boxes out to sea, but a front came through that night and changed the drift patterns and they washed ashore.
``If we ever did use these types of crates again, we'd probably take black spray paint and spray out anything that said `rockets.' ''
One crate washed ashore Sunday in the Ocean Sands subdivision, followed by a third in Sanderling about 10:30 p.m., said Cherry.
``They did not have rockets in them,'' Cherry said. ``But they did have tubes in them.''
The beach patrol immediately contacted explosive ordnance demolition teams in Norfolk and Cherry Point in Havelock, N.C., and cleared the beaches for 300 feet around the crates.
No one was asked to leave, but a boardwalk and pool access way in Corolla Light were closed.
National Guard Lt. Col. Jim Mitcham told the Corolla Fire Department the crates were not a threat. But the beaches remained off-limits until about 11:30 p.m., after the Marines and Navy arrived.
In Dare County, one empty crate appeared on the beach in northern Duck about 10:30 p.m. Sunday.
Sandy Sanderson, Dare County Emergency Management Coordinator, said, ``When the crates first came in and they saw what they were, we acted accordingly. We treated it like a threat. I treated them like they were hazardous - there's always a chance that something else might float in that looked like them. You never know what's going to wash up.''
Mitcham sent an Army helicopter to retrieve the crates about midnight. According to Satterlee, ``What's actually in each box is a long, cylindrical cardboard tube. Within that tube is where you can put rockets. But there were no rockets. We had already used the rockets.''
He said the rockets are used in air-to-ground target training in restricted areas.
Satterlee was one of eight officers in four helicopters who participated in the exercise.
Beachcombers who come upon a marked crate should immediately contact authorities in Currituck or Dare counties. Officials have been given detailed information to match with written messages on each crate.
``If markings do not match exactly, then we're going to secure the beach again,'' Cherry said.
The 23-mile stretch of Currituck County beaches was teeming with tourists Monday. ``We're packed,'' Cherry said. ``We've got about 15,000 people on this beach today.'' by CNB