Bomb scare strikes Newport Harbor High

-- Danette Goulet

Alarmed administrators evacuated a building at Newport Harbor High

School on Tuesday when they feared a beeping noise they heard in a locker

was a bomb.

When the Orange County Sheriff’s Department bomb squad opened the

locker, they found a small alarm clock.

“We heard a beeping noise going off in the locker, and we’re checking

to be safe,” said Lee Gaeta, the school’s assistant principal, adding

that he almost opened the locker with wire cutters before thinking better

of it.

Students heard the beeping and notified their teacher, Gaeta said, who

in turn alerted his office.

When he and the Newport Beach police officer on campus could not be

sure that it was simply a cellular phone or pager, as they suspected, the

bomb squad was called in.

The action didn’t disrupt classes much.

“We evacuated the building,” Gaeta said. “It was the very end of the

school day anyway.”