In West Columbia, a scary situation early Tuesday morning. A bomb squad setting up shop at an apartment complex. Investigators say a maintenance worker at the Woodbine Apartments found a military explosive in a vacant apartment. Everything is in the clear, but neighbors wonder what could have been.
It was an explosive discovery inside the West Columbia apartment Tuesday morning.
"It was an actual bomb. It was a bomb probably about three to four feet tall," said apartment resident Dawn Styes.
Styes lives a few doors down from where officials found a Rocket Propelled Grenade, or RPG, in the vacant apartment
"It was scary I'll tell you that. I was scared," said Styes,
She was able to catch the aftermath on tape Tuesday. In the video it showed the Lexington County Bomby Squad making its way in to remove what they thought was a live RPG. Residents, including small children, were only feet away from possible disaster.
"Once I'm over the scaredness, now that I'm thinking about it I'm very angry because there are brand new babies in both of these buildings," said Styes.
"It was very sad and very frightening that someone would bring a bomb in here and threaten the lives of innocent people," said apartment resident Wanda Hughes.
Neighbors say the explosive situation sparked some concern. Now they have a message for whomever put the community in danger.
"Whoever brought that bomb to this complex don't ever think you're coming back here, ever again," said Styes.
West Columbia Police Chief Dennis Tyndall says the device was designed to destroy.
"It could have potentially exploded, and went through the ceiling and started a fire inside the complex," said Chief Tyndall.
It took the bomb squad nearly 10 minutes to safely clear the RPG. Neighbors call it 10 minutes of terror.
"This is a good place to live. And for those people to bring that here is out of line," said Styes.
Authorities later determined the RPG was inactive. But the community is rocked by what could have happened.
Chief Tyndall says the military had to be called in to help with the investigation, so authorities could determine exactly where the device came from.
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