From Deseret News archives:
Shell shocked: Errant avalanche bomb rips Pleasant Grove home
A large mirror has what looks like bullet holes in the glass.
It looks like it was bombed because it was.
A 105mm howitzer shell fired near Sundance in Provo Canyon overshot its mark and landed with a bang in the Conners' back yard. The boom was heard over several blocks.
Debris from the 3 p.m. explosion Wednesday also damaged a car across the street from the Connors' home and two other houses in the vicinity of 1600 East and 500 South on the Pleasant Grove bench.
It was a miracle no one was killed or injured, said Scott Connors.
"If the school bus had just been a minute or two earlier, kids would have been walking in the street where the shrapnel went across," Connors said.
The Connors' 3-year-old son was lying on the family room floor watching television when the mortar exploded.
If he had raised his head or if he'd been standing, he would have been in the path of several bits of deadly flying shrapnel.
Lori Connors chokes up when she thinks about it.
"Every time I walk downstairs, I think, "What if?' " she said.
"We figure it was a minor miracle. No. It wasn't minor," said Scott Connors.
Utah Department of Transportation officials, who have taken responsibility for the errant mortar, say the event is a rarity, even though they set off 560 rounds of explosive material every year in an attempt to control avalanche danger in the Provo, American Fork, Big and Little Cottonwood canyons.
"Of the tens of thousands of blasts done in Utah, there are extremely few incidents like this," said Liam Fitzgerald, supervisor for the Avalanche Safety Program in UDOT's Region 2.
"This one was recorded as a dud because the crew did not see or hear an explosion," Fitzgerald said.
Fitzgerald said the cannon was fired from a fixed launch site on the north side of Provo Canyon a spot above Sundance that's been used many times before.
"Most of our firing is done when we cannot see the target," he said. "That's when we have avalanches, when it's storming."
Recent comments
WOW THAT AWAESOME BUT I WOULDN'T WANT THAT BOMB IN MY BACKYARD :)...
Anonymous | Feb. 26, 2009 at 2:51 p.m.
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