Scare in the Air in Boston/Evacuations in Seattle

It's a good thing sometimes to be too busy to post during the day, because if I hadn't been, I'd probably have chased all the crazy rumors that were running around this morning regarding the diverted United Airlines flight. When I first heard the story the media was reporting that there had been a disturbance on the flight involving 3 people. Then it was one lady who had a panic attack. Then the lady supposedly had a screwdriver, tube of vaseline, matches and a note referring to al Qaeda written in both English and Arabic. It sounded like she'd been on a terrorist scavenger hunt.

TSA officials quashed the rumor about most of the items (which I doubted from the start since they were practically strip searching passengers going from London to the U.S.) and we're back to the panic attack story

(UPDATE inserted 8/20: She did have a screwdriver after all.):

A woman panicking from claustrophobia caused a Washington-bound flight from London to make an emergency landing in Boston on Wednesday, sparking a major security alert.

Police and other officials said there was no apparent terrorist threat, but the incident set off a major security response a week after British authorities said they had foiled a plot to blow up planes from London to the United States.

United Airlines flight 923, carrying 182 passengers and 12 crew, was escorted by fighter jets to Boston after crew members confronted a 59-year-old U.S. woman who became unruly due to an apparent panic attack, officials said.

Nenette Day, a spokeswoman with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Boston, said the woman became disruptive on the flight and had to be forcibly restrained. She was arrested after the plane landed. Disrupting an international flight is a crime, said Day.

The woman was carrying hand cream and matches but was not a terrorist threat, said Christopher White, a Transportation Security Administration spokesman. Those items are not banned on commercial flights, he said.

"There are no known links to terrorism regarding this event at this time," said White.

I can understand allowing her on the flight with a small tube of hand creme, but how did they miss the matches? I thought security going out of London was supposed to be airtight?

In Seattle there were some questions about a cargo container that bomb dogs hit on when it was searched. The result was a large evacuation:

Authorities set up a half-mile perimeter around a terminal at the Port of Seattle on Wednesday after bomb-sniffing dogs indicated that at least one container recently unloaded from a ship could contain explosives.

Dozens of personnel were evacuated from Terminal 18, on Harbor Island south of downtown Seattle, a port spokesman said. A bomb squad was set to examine the container and determine its contents.

The container was taken off the ship because of questions about a manifest, port spokesman David Schaefer said.

"The bomb-sniffing dogs did what bomb-sniffing dogs do, and it caused us to be worried there might be explosives," Schaefer said.

Coast Guard Petty Officer Mike Zolzer said the container was supposed to contain oily rags, but authorities apparently found items that did not match that description.

Zolzer said he did not know where the ship originated.

As of last report, that one is still being worked on. Port security is a big problem, and a Rand Corp. study was just released today that gave a projected impact of a fictional nuclear blast in Long Beach Harbor. The results aren't pretty:

A nuclear explosion at the Port of Long Beach could kill 60,000 people immediately, expose 150,000 more to hazardous radiation and cause 10 times the economic loss of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, according to a new Rand Corp. study.

The study released Tuesday by the Santa Monica-based think tank was the latest to address concerns about the possible vulnerability of the nation's ports.

It analyzed the possible effects of terrorists detonating a 10-kiloton nuclear bomb in a shipping container unloaded onto a Long Beach pier.

In addition to the human casualties, such a blast might destroy the infrastructure and every ship at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, which together handle about one-third of the nation's imports, the study said. Damage at port-area refineries could create critical shortages.

The two ports have taken steps to tighten security.

I remember on December 17, 1976 the tanker ship Sansinea blew up in Los Angeles Harbor. At the time I lived in Westminster, more than 20 miles away. The blast shook our house and rattle the windows, and that was just a fuel explosion. I can't imagine the damage a nuke would do.