N.J. school shut after old military explosive found nearby
Classes were canceled at a Gloucester County school Friday, a day after live ordnance was discovered in a nearby field. The explosive apparently was left over from the 1950s, when the site was a military base.
Classes were canceled at a Gloucester County school Friday, a day after live ordnance was discovered in a nearby field. The explosive apparently was left over from the 1950s, when the site was a military base.
The school was closed Friday so that a bomb squad could conduct a second search of the grounds. No additional explosives were found, authorities said.
Gloucester County Christian School is on the grounds of a former Cold War-era Nike missile base in Mantua. It enrolls about 250 students in kindergarten through 12th grade and is operated by Hardingville Bible Church in Monroeville.
The artillery explosive was found by workers clearing the grounds Thursday around 4:40 p.m. at the school, authorities said. The explosive lay several hundred yards from the school.
The Camden County Sheriff's Office bomb squad determined that the ordnance was a live piece of military explosive, said Sheriff Gilbert "Whip" Wilson.
A team from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst performed a controlled detonation of the explosive, authorities said.
The Nike base was one of a dozen constructed in the Philadelphia region in the '50s to defend the country against a possible Soviet bomb attack.
Students in after-school and sports programs were evacuated as a precaution. Authorities said students were not exposed to any danger and no injuries were reported.
"Members of our bomb squad performed admirably," Wilson said in a statement. "Any time we are called out for live ordnance it presents different challenges, but working on a former military installation that is now a place where children learn and play provides another level of complexity."
No one answered the telephone at the school Friday.
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