Bomb squad closes SR 14, destroys suspicious object

A state trooper found a suspicious object on state Highway 14 early Friday morning, prompting a brief closure of the highway and a bomb squad to respond.

The trooper had stopped a vehicle on the highway for suspicion of driving under the influence just west of Camas at about 12:45 a.m. when the trooper noticed something suspicious, Washington State Patrol Trooper Will Finn said.

The trooper spotted something on the shoulder of the road, painted red and with the word “dynamite,” Finn said.

The observation prompted a short closure of the highway and sent a bomb squad from Portland to the scene where they detonated the object, Finn said. That team did not confirm whether the object was an actual explosive device.

Washington State Department of Transportation’s Twitter account sent out a tweet about the closure, calling the incident a “Bomb on SR 14.”

WSDOT Spokesman Bart Treece said that a technical issue led to the tweet, which would normally have called the situation a “police incident.”

“We wouldn’t normally include that kind of information,” Treece said. “We didn’t mean to scare anyone.”