Dynamite fear forces evacuation of town

Friday, Sept. 3, 2004 | 11:07 a.m.

The 200 residents of Goodsprings, a mining town just off the beaten path northwest of Jean, were evacuated Thursday for eight hours after aging dynamite was found deteriorating at a nearby home.

Two Clark County Fire Department units, two Las Vegas Fire and Rescue units, Metro Police, the Nevada Highway Patrol and the Las Vegas Bomb Squad arrived at the home of Phil and Ruth Rawlins about noon to discover more than 40 leaking dynamite sticks. The sticks were packed in two cartons inside an unused refrigerator in a shed along with a wooden box of blasting caps about 10 feet away.

"It's an unsafe situation," Clark County Fire Department spokesman Bob Leinbach said as the bomb squad spent most of the afternoon building a ramp from the shed to remove the explosives, which were leaching nitroglycerin.

"Heat, a spark, a radio wave, even a cell phone can detonate dynamite like that," Leinbach said.

Leinbach would not specify whether the couple would face any criminal action, noting the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives issues permits for anyone who keeps more than one stick of dynamite on their property, he said.

Any subsequent fines would be levied through the Clark County district attorney's office, Leinbach said.

Leinbach did not know if the couple had the permit, he said.

Keith Heinzerling, resident agent in charge of the Las Vegas office of the ATF, said his agency had become involved only to assist in the evacuation. The agency this morning had not launched any action against the couple, he said.

Kathy and Daniel Gonzalez had just opened their Goodsprings realty office next to the Pioneer Saloon when the order to evacuate came.

Daniel Gonzalez locked up the office, an old jail cell covered in tin sheets bought from a 1913 Sears & Roebuck catalog, and the couple went to Nevada Landing, a casino and hotel in Jean. They headed there along with 40 other Goodsprings residents to spend the night.

Five students were also evacuated from the Goodsprings Elementary School and a bedridden man was taken by ambulance to the Nevada Landing about 5:30 p.m., Leinbach said.

An anonymous caller had informed a Clark County fire station in Las Vegas about the dynamite a week ago, Leinbach said, but no one answered the door of the Goodsprings house until Thursday morning.

Goodsprings resident Ruth Rawlins said she answered a knock about 9:30 a.m., and Metro Police officers asked to inspect the shed. She said she and her husband had been out of state for about a week.

"I told them about the box of blasting caps," Rawlins said. Her husband placed the dynamite and the caps into the shed in 1976 after mining in Southern Utah, she said.

Phil Rawlins had intended to remove the 28-year-old dynamite himself, Ruth Rawlins said, but he has been battling cancer.

Grandson Hyram Rawlins, 18, said he had been helping his grandfather clean up an alley in back of the property.

"There were crystals growing on the bottom of one of the cartons of dynamite," Rawlins said. "I didn't think it would be this crazy."

Metro Lt. Kent Bitsko, incident commander, said that the bomb squad warned that if the dynamite had exploded, it would have devastated everything within 3,000 feet.

"The blast would have leveled 25 or 30 homes," Bitsko said.

"Please call Metro's bomb squad if you have any dynamite or blasting caps at home," Bitsko said.

The district attorney's office, bomb squad and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will review the incident, but Bitsko said he did not believe anyone would be charged.

"He (Rawlins) knew it had been out there," Bitsko said. "He was very cooperative."

Grover Loftus, a 20-year Goodsprings resident, said that he lives next door.

"I knew about the dynamite for 15 years and I live right next to it," Loftus said. "They (police) told me to get out of town."

Stopped in an old red pickup truck, Gina Le Claire said she was told by Metro officers that she had to leave town. She said she had no idea there was dynamite nearby.

"I'm kinda shocked," Le Claire said. "Dynamite is like a bomb. I thought they were making a movie when I saw the flashing lights. I'm not worried now that I know, as long as my books are safe."

Historian Liz Warren, a Goodsprings resident who drove to Las Vegas after the evacuation, said dynamite and blasting caps are common in a mining town.

"I think they turned this into a Homeland Security exercise," Warren said, referring to the heavy turnout of police, firefighters and explosives experts. "It's a mining town -- no joke."

Sherrie and Lynn Rhoades have lived across the road from the Rawlins' home for 13 years and returned from grocery shopping to find the road blocked.

"I'm worried about the meat and the milk and our cat," Sherrie Rhoades said. Her daily medicine was also at home, she noted while waiting for the all-clear at Nevada Landing.

"It'll be all right, everything will work out," Lynn Rhoades said as he steadied his wife.

Bomb squad members doused the dynamite with diesel fuel behind a hill northwest of Goodsprings, then set it ablaze, causing orange flames and white smoke to rise into the air about 6:30 p.m.

Then the squad went back to the corrugated tin shed and removed the blasting caps and burned them until about 8 p.m., when residents were allowed to return to their homes.

"I'm going to sleep easier tonight," Kathy Gonzalez said.

Goodsprings is steeped in history and has been used in several movies, Gonzalez said, including "Miss Congeniality II," starring Sandra Bullock.

Goodsprings from 1911 to 1930 bustled with mining and railroad activities. The Yellow Pine Mining Co. opened a narrow gauge railroad, linking its Goodsprings mill to mines four miles west of the town, a historic marker on the edge of town says.

The railroad tracks ran to Jean, seven miles east, but the Goodsprings mill was dismantled in 1934.

In 1916 Goodsprings had 800 residents and a major hotel, several saloons, stores and a newspaper, The Goodsprings Gazette.