A Frightening Discovery

As I pulled up the shades this morning, I noticed that the mailbox was missing! Did a snow plow hit it during the night? Probably not--it rained. Did some teenager knock it off as a prank?

So I went out to see what was up--just as the neighbor across the street came over with a big piece of metal with "1029" on it. He had just found it by his front door. Realization dawned and my legs began to shake. It was the main piece of our mailbox and it had flown OVER his garage to land where it did. We began to note other damage, and had to call the police. The responding officer was expecting a "Macgyver bomb"--something easily done by fun-seeking youths that just splits open the mailbox. He was shocked by what he found instead--damage from a metal pipe bomb.
There were shards of metal like this on our sidewalk by the front door. The house just above the officer had a piece of metal on the roof. Shards were found in yards all around us, except for the Sierras--the snow bank behind the mailbox shielded them!

There was damage to the garage doors of our neighbors across the street, as well as our own. That includes a small hole I can stick my pinkie into that nearly goes through the door (on the inside, it is cracked and bulging). Another neighbor had a hole in his siding. There were holes in our siding...

...that we have since "bandaged" to prevent water damage (thanks to the help of a kind neighbor).

All of the neighbors, including me, heard the bomb go off last night about 10:45. It sounded like a direct-hit lightning bolt, without the rumble afterwards. I thought perhaps a transformer had blown, but no, we still had electricity. It sounded like it came from the main road, so then I thought perhaps it was a bad traffic accident. But then no sirens came. It was unsettling!

The police were here from 7 a.m until about 1 pm. A bomb squad was called in. All the neighbors were interviewed. We were late getting to church because we weren't allowed to drive the car out through the driveway--to keep from destroying any evidence. I was so shaken up that I sought a blessing. That helped a great deal.

Another thing that helped was the information from the police that we were not the targets, (I had wondered, was some crazy upset that Mormon missionaries were staying here?), and they now had a really good idea of who had done it (some neighbor youths had a lot of information for the police).

Now I just need to call our insurance for damage estimates, and figure out how to get mail delivered, and sweep up the remaining debris. E. wanted to keep the "1029" piece but the police took it.

Even the bush got "schrapneled". I actually think the hungry rabbits got to it first. At any rate, I'm not going to include it in the damages--it'll be just fine.

This was the view two days ago. Goodbye mailbox! And to end on a positive, notice how much the snow has melted in the past 2 days!

I'm just glad I wasn't walking the dog at 10:45 pm on a Saturday night (it's happened before!), and E. wasn't coming home from a hang-out at that time (which is exactly when her ride would be pulling into the driveway). I know we were blessed and watched over.

I am grateful.