Did You Hear That?

I had a friend visiting from out of town last week and she nearly ducked and took cover the first time she heard the aftermath of explosive testing at Aberdeen Proving Ground, from inside my house.

"What the hell was that?" she yelled to me from my kitchen, frightened.

"Oh, probably dynamite or munitions or something," I answered casually.

She walked to the room I was standing in and poked her head through the doorframe.

"You're kidding, right?" She looked puzzled.

It took me a while to explain that whatever was going on at APG was causing noise to travel across the Chesapeake Bay to my house, sometimes shifting things from their place on tables or knocking art off-center on my walls.

The blasts felt this week have even shaken the floors.

Even though I've become fairly used to the noises from testing munitions and explosives on post, sometimes I'm rattled by the intensity of what goes on over there.

When I first moved to the area from northern Harford County, I thought I was losing my mind for several weeks. Every time I would hear an explosion, I would stop in my tracks.

Was it thunder? In the middle of a beautifully sunny warm summer day? Not likely. I'd look around for a car accident, finding nothing.

It took me well over a week to figure out that the varying levels of noise were actually coming from APG and the island where guns were being fired, armor was being tested and charges detonated.

I could be walking my dog and hear a muffled boom, followed by an echo. At first I thought it was cannons from a war re-enactment in Havre de Grace. And then I would hear a different explosion, with a different sound.

Sometimes I'd hear the charges on a Monday or Tuesday in the morning hours, and I would slow whatever I was doing to wait for a more distinct noise. Something I could identify, but it would never come.

Apparently the noises (and subsequently, vibrations) that seemed louder and stronger than usual this week were still part of "planned detonations" on post.

As far as I know (and people who live closer to post have also told me), citizens weren't notified of the charges in advance, causing quite the upset to anyone who isn't used to the sounds.

Now I'm not complaining about the folks at APG doing their jobs. After all, APG is the Army's oldest proving ground and it's been around since the 1900s.

Sometimes you'll see a notification in the local newspaper or someone will mention there's going to be some "big booms" coming, but I didn't get any warning this week.

You would think in times of such national upset, our friends at APG would be ultra-sensitive to making us aware of what's going on.

Just a little "heads-up" before we all practice the old under-the-desk drill inside our own homes would be nice.