A grenade was found Tuesday morning on the shoulder of Interstate 5 near Northeast 179th Street, and a police response to the incident blocked a lane of traffic for about two hours.
Crews with the Department of Ecology were on the freeway’s southbound shoulder doing some work at about 8:30 a.m. when they discovered the grenade, which still had the pin intact, Washington State Patrol spokesman Trooper Will Finn said.
Finn said it was hard to tell if the device was a novelty grenade or a legitimate weapon.
“It could have been used as a display; it could have been used as a booby trap,” Finn said. “Part of it appeared to have been run over by a vehicle at some point, which is a little scary.”
He said that either way, the situation was potentially dangerous. Finn said that it appeared two pieces of rebar had been welded to the bottom of the device.
“It was clear that it had been modified somehow,” he said. “Even if it was a novelty, novelty items can be turned into an explosive. … In order to keep everyone safe, they’re going to treat it like it is a live device.”
Members of the Portland Metro Explosive Disposal Unit responded to the scene and X-rayed the device, Finn said, but the scans were inconclusive.
“In order to be extremely safe, they made the decision to remove it from the road and take it to an undisclosed location to be destroyed,” Finn said.
All lanes of the highway were closed for about 5 minutes while the bomb squad placed the device into a specially designed explosive bag, Finn said.
All lanes of the freeway reopened by about 10:45 a.m.
