Suspicious Packages Spark False Alarm : Security: Post office is evacuated. Beeping parcels turn out to be clocks.

Even over the sounds of the piped-in Christmas carols and the crowd of customers lined up at the U.S. Postal Service’s Harvest Station branch, the clerk could hear the plain, brown packages making a noise that sends chills down the spine: beep, beep, beep. . . .

The crowded post office was quickly evacuated and Irvine police, the Orange County Sheriff’s Bomb Squad and postal inspectors descended on the small Murphy Avenue branch and blocked off the road nearby. To the relief of everyone, the beeping parcels contained nothing threatening--just presents.

Thirty-nine identical packages, each about the size of a box of tissues, contained clocks, all being sent out as holiday gifts by an Orange County company. Six of the devices had batteries already loaded, and, about 11 a.m. Tuesday, their electronic-sounding alarms were the cause of the mini-crisis.

“It was . . . interesting” said a weary Ronel Johnson, the customer service supervisor at the branch office. “It’s good to know, at least, that the whole system works the way it’s supposed to. It was a false alarm, but it’s reassuring that everybody did the right thing.”