Bottle Bombs Shake Up Howard County

Howard County police are warning residents of a new, potentially dangerous threat: "bottle bombs."

By mixing household chemicals and aluminum foil in plastic soda bottles, Internet-schooled scientists have discovered a potent chemical reaction that causes the bottle to explode, sending chemicals throughout the air, police said in a press release issued Wednesday.

“Victims exposed to the chemicals...could require medical treatment as a result of injuries to the skin, eyes and respiratory tract,” police said in the statement.

There have been five bottle bomb incidents since the beginning of the year in Howard County, and there were nine in 2011, police said.

In two recent incidents, police found parts of a plastic bottle and aluminum foil in a family’s driveway in Woodbine and one detonated near a child on Thunder Hill Road in Columbia, according to the release.

The child was not injured, according to police.

In February, three juveniles were investigated for detonating bottle bombs that caused the “complete destruction of metal mailboxes,” wrote police. The juveniles were required to attend a fire and bottle bomb safety course to teach them about the serious dangers of bottle bombs, police said.

Citizens are advised to be on the lookout for bottle bombs, which appear as plastic bottles that are "significantly expanded and deformed," said police. The department asks anyone who sees what may be a bottle bomb to call 911 and not touch the device. 

Manufacturing and detonating a bottle bomb can be charged as a felony, said police.