[meteorite-list] Mysterious Boom Shakes Jackson County in Mississippi

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Apr 10 10:32:21 2006
Message-ID: <200604100443.k3A4hUU21923_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/thesunherald/news/special_packages/renewal/long_beach/14294474.htm

Mysterious boom shakes Jackson County
    
Officials deduce it was accidental sonic boom

By KAREN NELSON
Sun Herald (Mississippi)
April 8, 2006

PASCAGOULA - People here haven't had anything rattle their world much
since Katrina.

But Friday morning, when "an extremely loud boom" shot through the air,
people filed out of businesses to look up, a deputy climbed onto the
roof of the courthouse scanning the horizon for plumes and the county
civil defense director rushed home from Biloxi.

The boom occurred at about 9:30 a.m. and shook windows of businesses
along U.S. 90, trailers near the beach, industry along the river and was
heard miles away in Hurley.

Don Stewart, chief deputy with the sheriff's department, was stopped at
a traffic light on Old Mobile Highway when it hit.

"I was in a Ford Expedition, that's a big vehicle, and it felt like
someone rear-ended me," Stewart said. "I got out and looked. There was
no vehicle behind me. I knew I wasn't going crazy."

Investigators and deputies evacuated the office trailers at the
courthouse, and Maj. Mike Robichaux climbed on the roof to try and spot
any source of the noise.

Butch Loper, county civil defense director, tried to work it by phone as
he rushed back to Jackson County. He was flooded with calls. His people
contacted the usual suspects, the chemical plants, the refinery and the
gas pipeline near Industrial Road. All reported nothing.

Signal International, the industry that repairs oil rigs along the
Pascagoula River, checked the rigs to make sure nothing had exploded,
said one employee.

Inside the Northrop Grumman shipyard, a supervisor of shipbuilding
employees said it sounded like someone had fallen off the roof.

Too loud to be a transformer and too widespread to be a train, it was
heard along Martin Bluff Road in Gautier.

Some people reported a second boom; others reported a sulfur smell.

By midday, Loper was satisfied it wasn't an industrial explosion.
Keesler Air Force Base, the Air National Guard at the state level and
Eglin Air Force Base near Pensacola reported they had no planes flying
in the area.

A man in downtown Moss Point said he missed the boom on Friday, but
claimed to have seen evidence of military jets dog-fighting at about
20,000 to 30,000 feet over the Gulf on Thursday.

On the ground Friday, Loper said he had patrol cars reporting from
several law enforcement agencies.

"We put full patrol out and found nothing," he said, so he favors the
sonic boom theory. He said the jets don't mean to create the boom, but
it happens sometimes when they make a tight turn.

"I know we can't find a trace of anything else," he said.
Received on Mon 10 Apr 2006 12:43:30 AM PDT