Homes evacuated after possible explosive found on St. Pete Beach

St. Pete Beach and several nearby homes have been evacuated after a beachgoer spotted “a large cylindrical object” Sunday morning that authorities said may be military weapons or ammunition.

The ordnance was found at 8:38 a.m.by a walker on the beach at the shoreline.

Deputies responded to the site and reported the object to be about four feet long and having a cone-shaped cap on one side.

Pinellas county sheriff’s deputies said the ordnance “appeared to have been submerged for a significant amount of time”.

There is now a 300-yard perimeter around the ordnance.

A spokesman for Mac Dill Air Force base says the object was a photoflash bomb, used to aid WWII-era night photographic missions.

It turned out to be a barnacle-covered M122 photoflash bomb from World War II, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

“We were all joking concerning it, except for a couple of”, Denise Taylor stated.

It weighed 103 pounds, had a candlepower of 45 million and boasted a flash so bright it was “detrimental to vision to watch the explosion”.

“The intent of the detonation is to completely destroy the tool itself”, Lowe stated.

The crews detonated the bomb at about 5 p.m. Sunday. After the surge, the team informed her the nests were not literally touched, but till hatching out period ends, it will stay vague whether the nests were disrupted.