Bomb Fear Forces an Evacuation

Patients in a portion of Anaheim Memorial Hospital and the residents of 50 adjacent apartment units were evacuated for more than five hours Saturday while explosives experts investigated two objects that looked like bombs, police said.

Though they turned out not to be explosives, the items -- one fashioned from a pipe, the other from a highway flare -- were made to resemble bombs, said police spokesman Sgt. Rick Martinez.

“It looks like somebody intentionally put them there,” Martinez said. “We don’t know whether it was a practical joke or they were trying to scare somebody. We will do an investigation. At this point, we have no clues.”

Security guards at the hospital, in the 1100 block of West La Palma Avenue, found the package and called police about 8:20 a.m., Martinez said. The objects were moved to a loading bay outside the medical building and the area was evacuated. The Orange County sheriff’s bomb squad was called in.

Police shut down about three blocks of West Street from La Palma Avenue to Romneya Drive while the bomb squad used a robotic device to examine the objects, Martinez said.

The street was reopened about 2 p.m.