From Orlando, Florida station WESH:
Engineer: Tank Found In Pit At Middle School
Residents near a local middle school said they find it hard to believe that no one knew about the World War II bombing range the school was built on.
The Army Corps of Engineers detonated 400 pounds of explosives found on the school property on Saturday.
"We were able to explode and render safe 49 23-pound bombs," Mike Fulford of the Army Corps Of Engineers said.
Superintendent Ron Blocker will be at Odyssey Middle School on Monday to assure students and parents that the school is safe.
And the engineering company in question:
Universal Engineering Services painted a rosy picture of the now-school property when it was surveyed in August of 1999: "No practice or live ordinance was dropped or fired on or from the Vista Lakes Property during operation of the Pine Castle Jeep Range. Former activities of the PJR do not appear to have adversly impacted the subject property."
It is unclear if engineers were wrong or if they had no information available to them at the time of the initial survey.
The Army Corps of Engineers expects to be working at the site for at least a year.
Jeez - you think that they could have at least walked around with a metal detector or Ground Penetrating Radar or something. Here is hoping that Universal Engineering Services pays a good part of the decontamination costs -- it was their fuck-up that they let this slip...
