They were wise

Back in old timer days dynamite was a hardware store item.

Friend was hiking in Montana and found an old crate of dynamite outside of an abandoned mine, when they saw it was "sweating" they nope'd right out of there.
Nitroglycerine is not to be messed with.

That scene always made me go "goddamn mother fucker, wish I could do that!"

Shit, you used to able to buy a fuckload of ammonium nitrate before.....well, you know.

I was gonna ask "couldn't you just put a sheet over it and carry it out with a stick? Just don't trip."

It doesn't have to go boom at all. It's just less risky to them to blow it in place, and they have no personal reason to save their house. That's why I would have rolled the dice and soaked it in diesel before moving it myself. Put it right next to the road and give them a reason to not just blow it.

You can still buy truck loads of AN.  Farmers do it all the time.

At one time around here you could go to the hardware store and buy it.

They didn’t even consider setting up some kind of Rube Goldberg device to drop a rock on it, after they were safely round the hillside?

Now she inherited a house that needs to be bulldozed.
Ouch

My old FD’s fire marshal’s office was a joint venture of fire marshal EOD and Sheriff’s office EOD personnel.  

Fire Marshal’s are cross trained state certified LEO’s.

We'll need a gif of that bomb squad blowing up, with fireworks no less, the bomb squads detonation/transport/un-blowup-able tank-looking-thingy for this thread.

There are some days I wish a fire department would find old dynamite in my house. Usually when I'm midway through explaining my wife's hair brained projects to the people who will be billing me for the work.

Kharn

She should have had her insurance company on the phone with the bomb disposal guys.

You guys really need to read the article for some of the details.

1. It was in the basement of an older home. They didn't have any way to get any kind of robot in to where it was.

2. The part of the basement it was in actually had a concrete roof making it a bunker of sorts.

Crazy decision to have to make but probably the correct one given the circumstances.

“I’m from the government and I’m here to help”

Watched the video on the dead whale.

Whale shit, stuff happens.

Great fucking video. I share it at every opportunity.

Correct is relative. It's the least risky solution for THEIR safety. Dynamite can be desensitized and burned though. Some bomb squads will do that. Some will desensitize and still burn in place.

Yup, and while most fertilizer places don't keep it around, and just order it in as needed, it's not b/c of the security issues, it's b/c it adsorbs moisture like a mother fucker and bulk will turn into one solid mass if not used up fast enough.

NG is rerally easy to make, thats why it was manufactured very primitively back in the mid to late 1800's.

There are YouTube videos of NG manufacture showing troughs and sluices with liquid NG running like a stream and they aren't all dying.



Nitroglycerin (NG) exuding from dynamite is only scary if its near the freezing point or gets absorbed into something that can stress the NG.

If its liquid its fine, if its completely frozen its fine, if its slushy - the crystals can be more hazardous and prone to initiation.

If the NG is in another matrix then that can be problematic, but its a contamination issue and 'potentially' a sensitivity issue.

Unfortunately, Public Safety Bomb Squads don't get taught "Desensitization" they are only taught to burn or blow in place or ask the FBI SABT what to do (if they are enlightened/connected they can talk to the Explosive Enforcement Officers or EOD or TSS-E's in their AO).

Certain units in US military EOD learn desensitization of HME & commercial explosives as part of their knowledge base and skillset - but EOD also don't have to deal with Lawyers & politicians like PSBT's do.

NG gets a bad name from Hollywood and old wives tales, not from actual knowledge.  

NG has had YEARS of bad experiences from people mishandling it, but its not nearly as crazy sensitive as MEKP!  

Back in the day, people used to smoke cigarettes while handling NG to counteract the vaso-dilation effects of NG (screaming headaches & fainting!).  THAT is how many accidents happened, from a hot butt, or ash contaminates into NG, not from NG itself.  But the unfamiliar propogate the myth that NG is "Dangerous" - yeah, if you are SMOKING!!

Yes, the proliferation of dynamite used to be more common, as well as the knowledge for safe handling and storage. Unfortunately many users 'forget' to physically rotate their NG loaded dynamite every 6 months, as gravity will cause the NG to exude or leach out filler material/casing and follow gravity down, into whatever it was sitting on, whether thats a wooden crate, shelf, or concrete.  Then the remediation is usually BURN or detonate.  

NG loaded dynamites only have a usable storage life of 18-24 months before the NG is out of the casing and its less effective.

If NG dynamite is stored correctly in a container that will not absorb the NG, then it [the NG] will puddle or form droplets.  The less informed get nervous about this, but, its literally a remote move and PUCA to final disposal.  Densitization techniques can be used to lubricate and disperse the material to avoid heat-stress-friction "activation energies".

The US Navy uses a metric shit ton of PGDN which is chemically very similar and physically very similar to NG and we don't have mishandling accidents with explosions from PGDN.

I'm not a farmer, so I imagine I'd get a visit or at least a phone call. I know you can easily buy smaller quantities from pyrotechnic chem sites no problem.

There are calls for removal of old dynamite in poor condition on a pretty regular basis, this is the first time I’ve heard of the house being blown up.

I’ve had a number of old timers tell me about irrigation ditch clear in the spring with dynamite.

Jerry Clower:

Claude was the only one in the community catchin' any fish. Folks was goin' and they wasn't catchin' nothin'. Old Claude Ledbetter, he'd come with a pickup truck loaded down. So the State Game and Fish Commission of Mississippi decided they'd go fishin' with Claude, just see how he was catchin'em. Claude told 'em   popped off   said, y'all don't know how to do it. Y'all ought to just go with me and watch me.
Well, the game warden got in the boat with him and they took off out in the middle of the river.
The game warden said, "Alright Claude, I'm gonna see how you catchin' all these fish when cain't nobody else catch none."
Claude raised the lid on the boat seat, got a big, long stick a dynamite. Lit the fuse on it. Let it go down kinda short, then drawed back and chucked it. Boom! Them big catfish come turnin' they belly up, whoopin' it outa that water, and Claude was just gettin'em by the tub full.
The game warden said, "Boy, that's against the law, you cain't do that. Don't you know you're breakin' the law?"
Well, Claude done lit another big stick a dynamite, handed it to the game warden; it goin' phsssssh!
The game warden took that stick a dynamite and said, "You idiot! This is against the law! You cain't do this!"
Claude said, "You gonna set there and argue, or fish!"

In the fire department where I served, we operated the bomb squad under the Fire Marshal’s office.

It used to be an everyday item.   Old timers used to clear water well casings by dropping in detonators.

That brings up the most important question:   Insurance?    Did she have it?     Do they cover this sort of thing?

Time fuze burns incredibly faster underwater too!  Electrical leads have a HIGH potential of shorting out also.  Det cord is best-est for underwater shots.

*Insurance generally does not cover explosives, as a residence is not-site approved and generally illegal to "store" explosives.  There are insurance company's that cover explosive work, but, all the regulations and laws HAVE to be followed for the policy to be in effect.

Local jurisdicictions are generally OFF THE HOOK for liability by 'best interest of public safety' guidance.  I don't agree with that, as there are other methods of remediation that could and should be explored including sub-contracting out the remediation.  If a super-fund site involving former chemical weapons leaking drums of VX can be remediated, then so can a NG contamination.



AFT approach: Shoot the dogs.
FBI approach: Burn the compound.

Guess which agency is in charge of certifying PSBT's whether Fire Dept or PD? See above.

Got anyplace to safely detonate it?

It used to be accessible and used on the farm to do all kinds of tasks.  My grandpa and dad blew a ton of shit up with it.

The punchline I heard was "You gonna fish or you gonna bitch?"

LAPD approach: Math is hard. Blow up half the neighborhood.

GD take note: this guy knows shit.

If’n you can choot it, stuff can come back at you in the same line.

Safer to setup a Rube Goldberg machine that triggers the stuff while you’re round a hillside

Packbot is a one man carry when OSHA isn't watching.

Kharn

Beaver management in many places.

I think that’s still a thing!

Or not an idiot.
Old dynamite is dangerous AF.

Go to pick it up, boom…

This.
My uncle had it on his place. Cleared stumps, beaver dams, etc… Also had det cord. Bought it at the local feed store IIRC.
He kept it all in his tornado shelter, lol.

He’d used it when he worked oilfield, knew what he was doing. Still had all his fingers…

Indeed.
Attached File

Back when the country used to be free; you could buy dynamite at the Circle K.

Rumor has it that a previous owner of my house had a surface to air missile in the basement. They reportedly evacuated nearby neighborhoods until it was disposed of. Not sure if he was a member of arfcom though.