Booms literally rocked the Verde Valley on Dec. 4 around 5 p.m., yet not a single law enforcement agency in the area knows what caused the incident nor indicated any plan to look into it.
Residents reported the ground shaking as the sounds vibrated through the region — some wondering if an earthquake caused the disturbance.
It wasn’t an earthquake.
It wasn’t a blast from the cement plant in Clarkdale.
It wasn’t an airplane from Luke Air Force Base.
What exactly caused it remains unknown, and it appears we may never know.
All of this comes on the heals of ramped-up efforts by local agencies to coordinate disaster response and cohesiveness between them in case of an emergency. Apparently that wasn’t the case in this situation.
The incident created the opportunity for an unplanned or staged test run of the system. I hope this isn’t an indication of what will happen if there is a disaster.
The blasts don’t appear to have been anything major — at least we haven’t seen any fallout yet — but the lack of investigation and information provided to the public is astounding.
With so much effort being put into disaster preparedness from the local level all the way to the federal government, it would seem local agencies would want the public to know what happened and whether or not to be concerned.
It’s understandable to dismiss a small boom in a neighborhood not heard more than a few blocks down — a firecracker, gun or machine could cause that sort of disturbance.
But a boom that stops people in their tracks causing them to pause, waiting to see if the world around them comes tumbling down needs an explanation.
Not knowing the answer right away is OK. It takes an investigation.
However, sitting here nearly two days later, nobody reporter Patrick Whitehurst called — and he’s made at least a dozen phone calls — can tell us anything, and it doesn’t appear they have any intention of looking into it.
Newsroom speculation runs from meth-lab explosion to return of the Mayans, or maybe a ULO — unidentified loud object.
For now, however, your guess is as good as ours, and that just might be as good as it gets.
