The team were called to attend a major incident in Exmouth due to an unexploded WW2 bomb being dredged up in Exmouth Marina. We were asked to provide responders to assist in the evacuation of a cordon while the bomb was to be moved. Our sister team from Ashburton had been out the previous night evacuating properties in the initial 400 meter cordon, and there was a need to evacuate further properties before any work was carried out to move the device.
Bomb disposal team X-Rayed the device, and ran computer simulations to determine the best course of action. This allowed the cordon to be reduced to 515 meters which significantly reduced the scale of the evacuation.
Once we knew that the bomb was to be moved at 4am on the high tide, we were tasked with sending teams out to evacuate properties up to 600 meters from the Marina. All 4 DRG teams, Exmoor and Cave Rescue were involved along with CoastGuard Rescue Organisation and Devon and Cornwall 4×4 response.
We wer able to start sending members home around 23:00 with the last team members leaving site at around 00:30 on Friday morning.
The device was successfully towed out to sea at around 04:00 in the morning, and has been detonated.
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