Construction Blast Rattles Neighbors
An explosion that prompted numerous calls to Ventura County firefighters Monday turned out to be construction workers filling in an abandoned water well.
Glen Luscombe, a hydrologist with the county public works agency, said he issued a permit to Colmer Development Co. of Calabasas to use four strands of dynamite caps--10 caps per strand--to close the 78-foot-deep well, located across the street from Sequoia Middle School on Borchard Road.
Colmer is building houses on the site.
The first three strands were under water, which muffled the sound of the explosions, Luscombe said.
But the fourth strand was detonated above the surface, and the loud explosion is what alarmed people, he said.
“It sounded like a large plane crash,” said Tom Halub, who lives in the 200 block of Borchard Road. “It shook the whole house.”
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