We hear about bomb threats all the time. More often than not they turn out to be just that, a threat, with no real bomb involved. But federal authorities say the incident last Wednesday in Ithaca wasn't a joke.
"This was a device that was not a hoax. That word has been used in the last few days. That this was a device intended to secede as a explosive device," said Ithaca Mayor Carolyn Peterson.
On May 25th the bomb was discovered by a Wal-Mart worker. The Endicott bomb squad was called in and Wal-Mart and neighboring stores were evacuated. The authorities, who say it included a battery on the bottom and a kitchen timer on top, were able to destroy the device by shooting it. Although everyone walked away from this incident okay, people who work in the area wonder could this happen again.
"You don't want to have to come to work everyday and worry about what's going to happen and if something is going to happen you don't want to have to worry if they find it in time," said Jen Robinson, Wendy's General Manager.
Efforts to control this situation were extensive and came at a cost.
"My feeling is that this will come up fairly high because of the amount of resources we had and the number of officers and the number of vehicles. And when you see officer and firefighters down at the scene that means other people will have to be called in to do the normal coverage of what is happening in the city at the same time. So I am sure it will be in the tens of thousands of dollars," Peterson said.
"I definitely think that whoever did it needs to be prosecuted for it. Because that is something that is not, I mean that is terrorism, basically in my opinion. Not only that but it takes away from businesses in the area. People lose money we lose money. Everybody loses money," Robinson said.
