|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
On the heels of an epic TV production mishap that sent a cannonball flying into Dublin homes, roughly two hundred people filled a local community center Saturday to discuss the incident.
Alameda County sheriff’s deputies and staff from the Discovery Channel show MythBusters today sought to address residents’ concerns after a
televised experiment went awry.
On Dec. 6 around 4:15 p.m., the show’s hosts launched an experiment at the Alameda County bomb range that mistakenly sent a 30-pound cannonball through a cinderblock wall, over a hill and into a nearby neighborhood where it damaged two homes and a minivan.
No one was harmed during the incident, including the family who slept as the cannonball shot through their master bedroom and the house’s
stucco wall.
During today’s hour-long meeting at the Alameda County Office of Emergency Services, deputies and MythBusters’ staff assured residents that they are investigating the incident and making every effort to prevent a similar mishap.
“It was an accident that went terribly wrong, and we’re just glad that no one was injured,” said Alameda County Sheriff Greg Ahern, who headed Saturday’s meeting.
The show’s hosts shot a homemade cannonball that they’d used at least three times before with the intention of shooting it through two huge barrels of water and a cinderblock wall meant to slow the cannonball’s progress before it landed in the surrounding 100-foot hills, Ahern said.
Instead, the cannonball missed the water, shot through the wall and bounced off of the hillside, sending it on its trip through the neighborhood below, where community members say children often play.
MythBusters’ executive director, Dan Tapster, told community members he understands their concern, but said the show’s “safety record is
excellent”, without a similar mishap over some 800 episodes, and that the crew will use this experience to prevent future accidents.
But several residents of the neighborhood affected by the stunt said they weren’t reassured.
“My concern is not that it’s done safely, but even that it’s done at all,” said James Dukleth, who lives one street away from the homes struck
by the cannonball. He said that he’d never been told that experiments were being staged so close to his home in the past seven to eight years
MythBusters has filmed at the county facility.
Another nearby resident, Catharine Baker, called the incident “a foreseeable accident” and questioned how a cannonball stunt could be allowed to occur in an area packed with homes.
Ahern told attendees that the show, which has had a long, positive relationship with the sheriff’s department, also brings regular revenue for the city, and is staffed with numerous scientific experts and safety
consultants.
Nonetheless, he said the sheriff’s department is investigating the incident to pinpoint just how it happened and is reevaluating whether the show will be allowed to continue filming there. Meanwhile, the bomb range has been closed.
As the meeting wrapped up, attendees were invited to enjoy a catered lunch on MythBusters, whose five hosts mingled with sheriff’s deputies and community members.
Laura Dixon, Bay City News
By
Laura Dixon, Bay City News
By
Original Matadors: Granada High School's first graduating class celebrating 60-year reunionAugust 21, 2026 8:25 am
I’m sure the bombing range existed long before the houses were built so close by. Nobody who lives there should be astonished that something that was meant to happen in a rural area was going on before that rural area was developed. However, the residents most likely should have been informed of what was nearby (along with the Santa Rita jail). The county, also, should have considered moving the bomb range when Dublin decided that that land could be developed for housing. It is the classic case of residents complaining about something that was there even before their houses got built (like the folks near the Livermore Airport, or those in downtown Pleasanton who complain of the sound of railroad horns…)
Ah well…
People need to get over it! It’s probably “more dangerous” living by Santa Rita Jail; people in Dublin should be more worried about that then worrying about what Myth Busters is doing!
You live next to a bomb range. Why haven’t you protested that in the past?