A pipe stuffed with sparklers drew authorities to the Northwest Valley Middle School in House Springs on Tuesday (July 2) and perhaps caused alarm in the neighborhood.
But there was never any danger, officials said.
The pipe – which authorities initially thought might be a pipe bomb – was found on the parking lot of Brennan Woods Elementary in High Ridge, said Terry Russell, executive director of operations for the Northwest School District.
“It was not a pipe bomb,” he said. “It was unexploded fireworks. It was sparklers taped together and shoved into a pipe presumably to be set off all at once. A custodian found it prior to (summer) school starting and as a precaution took it to our maintenance office on the Northwest Valley Middle School campus.”
School district officials knew the pipe contained low-impact fireworks, but called the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office at 7:15 a.m. Tuesday as a precaution, Russell said.
Then, the Sheriff’s Office contacted the St. Louis County Bomb and Arson Squad, with both agencies sending personnel to Northwest Valley, 4300 Old Gravois Road.
“There were a number of emergency vehicles at the school,” Russell said. “They took the fireworks into a nearby field and set them off.”
Russell said while authorities investigated the suspicious items, one of the law enforcement agents cut his hand and someone else called for medical care, so an ambulance also went to Northwest Valley.
He said district summer school was in session, but no students at either school were near the sites where the fireworks were found or detonated. Summer school in the district ends today (July 3).
He said some students in Lions Care, the district’s before-and-after-school child care program, were at Brennan Woods when the items were discovered.
The Sheriff’s Office reported finding several spent packages of sparklers on the Brennan Woods parking lot, 4630 Brennan Road.