A bomb scare slowed business and frayed a few nerves at an Oregon truck stop this past weekend. And while the devices found turned out to not be dangerous, until police were sure, the incident shut down not only the truck stop’s pumps, but the exit ramps off Interstate 5 as well.

About 10 a.m. Saturday, May 22, a shuttle bus driver at the Seven Feathers Travel Center in Canyonville, OR, found a blue suitcase in the road, a police statement said. The driver opened it, and discovered seven metal cylinders inside.

The bus driver notified travel center security and police, and a security officer moved the suitcase away from the shuttle bus.

Soon afterward, officers from the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department arrived, shutting down the ramps at Exit 99 on I-5, about halfway between Eugene, OR, and the California state line. As a precaution, some vehicles at the truck stop were moved, and the gas and diesel pumps were shut down, Lt. John Stall of the Sheriff’s Department said. Interstate 5 remained open.

The Oregon State Bomb Squad was called to the scene, and, using a remote-controlled robot, examined the cylinders and determined that they were not bombs.

Roughly seven officers – three from the bomb squad and four from the Sheriff’s Department – were at the scene, Stall said. But the number of cars, officers and flashing emergency lights at the scene left passers-by thinking something major had occurred.

“The whole place was shut down,” OOIDA member Doug Fabish, who witnesses the incident from the highway, told Land Line. Fabish had planned to fuel up at the truck stop but was unable to because of the ramp closure. “The truck stop was a mass of police cars … I’ve never seen that many cops in Oregon in one place.”

And all, apparently, for what amounts to a package of light bulbs.

Dwes Hutson, a spokesman for the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department, said the cylinders turned out to be cobalt rods that are used in lighthouses. The devices cannot be made into weapons and are not dangerous. Once the bomb squad determined that, activity at the truck stop returned to normal in “about five minutes.”

The ramps were closed down for only about an hour and a half, Stall said. He thinks the suitcase fell off a truck, and his department is already working to find the owner.

“This is one of those that got blown out of proportion,” Stall said. “I closed the off-ramp down, I set up a good enough perimeter that I didn’t need to close down the rest.”

“We were just cautious.”

--by Mark H. Reddig, associate editor

Mark Reddig can be reached at mark_reddig@landlinemag.com.