Extra-Loud Military Blasts Rattle South County Nerves

Hundreds of South County residents, many of them scared, have been calling authorities over the last two days and learning that the loud blasts that have rattled windows and shaken their nerves come courtesy of the United States Marine Corps.

Even people who have grown accustomed to the distant rumble and roar of aerial bombing and artillery practice at Camp Pendleton weren’t prepared for the violent explosions that have been heard as far away as San Diego.

“I have people calling me saying they’ve lived here for years and it’s never been this bad,” a San Clemente Police Department dispatcher said Wednesday. “The explosions seem to be louder and they’ve never felt their houses shake so much.”

“The little guns going off isn’t annoying, but this is annoying,” said San Clemente resident Cheryl Hartman. “One blast last night around 9 o’clock scared us half to death.”

A Marine spokesman, 1st Lt. David Steele, acknowledged the noise has been uncommonly loud during training that began at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday and continued Wednesday.

He explained the unusual concussion as a combination of the type of explosives being used, and terrain and climate that amplify the sound so much that it carries far from the sprawling Marine base.

Steele said the blasts from so-called “line charges,” which are used to clear a path through a minefield, are more vibrant than virtually any other ordnance detonated at the world’s largest amphibious training base, opened in 1942.

“The mortars, artillery and bombs don’t make the same kind of explosion that these things do,” he said, adding that exercises with line charges are conducted four or five times a year and are considered routine.

A line charge is fired from a mortar tube atop a modified tank. The rocket, which is launched from the tube, trails a 350-foot cord which has 700 small, separate plastic explosives attached to it.

“When they hit the ground, they all detonate simultaneously,” setting off enemy mines, according to Steele. “It’s like one big 1,700-pound explosion.”

This time, the exercise was held on relatively flat areas of Camp Pendleton, terrain that “allowed the sound to travel down the canyons, north and south.” In addition, the lack of an onshore breeze to blow the sounds inland made the blasts seem more powerful.

Camp Pendleton is used to getting reports that some of its exercises can be heard up to 50 miles away. Yet, Steele said, “we realized today that it could be 70 miles.”

At any rate, it was too close for many South County residents.

One woman even called San Clemente City Hall complaining that a powerful explosion had smashed a window in her home, said receptionist Alison Riabucha.

Riabucha said she went to her San Clemente home for lunch on Wednesday, just in time to be startled by a strong boom that felt “just like a bomb” had exploded nearby.

“People are scared,” she said.

“We just tell callers we’re going to war,” joked Orange County Sheriff’s Sgt. Gerry Meyer, who said the department has logged about 150 calls from worried residents wanting to know what the booming is all about.

Laguna Niguel City Clerk Juanita Zarilla said City Hall there also received numerous calls from frightened and curious residents on Wednesday. On a lunchtime trip to the new Mervyn’s department store just up the street from City Hall, she felt small rumblings that she said felt like earthquake aftershocks. The clerks and customers, she reported, were “a little jumpy.”

Retired San Clemente resident Jim Hill, who as a Hughes Aircraft worker helped develop the Marines’ bomb delivery system, said he welcomes the sounds of training, knowing that the military is preparing to protect Americans and others.

“It’s no big deal. To me, those are the sounds of freedom.”

Practice with line charges will end today. However, it’s not a cease-fire yet as Marine aviators will fly over the base and drop 500-pound bombs.

“Things are going to get worse before they get better,” Meyer said.