Club Official: Verona, Cedar Grove Runners Are Safe

Updated 10:15 p.m.
The entire group of Verona and Cedar Grove residents who ran in Monday’s Boston Marathon are reportedly safe after a series of explosions erupted near the finish line of the race, an official with the Essex Runners Club said. 

Runners Club Vice President Desmond Duncker said in an email to Patch club members Dan Smith of Cedar Grove and David Taliaferro of Verona completed the course “long before the bombs went off.”

Duncker said the group was able to determine all local runners were in a safe location after several Facebook posts.

“Thanks to technology we were able to determine everyone was safe!” Duncker wrote.

In addition, “Mick Close who lived on Bortic Road for many, many years until his wife died of cancer a few years ago and he remarried a fellow club member and moved a short distance to Little Falls,” was also safe.

The two explosions happened near the finish line of the race nearly four hours and 10 minutes after it started — just shy of two hours after the first man crossed the finish line. 

PBS reports 562 runners from New Jersey among the 23,000 in the race.

A loud explosion was heard near a bridge that marks the finish line in the annual race, the New York Times reported. A third explosion occurred later at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, which police told CNN is likely connected to the marathon bombings.

CBS reports two homemade bombs were found, according to Back Bay Patch.

Additionally, two more bombs were found and deactivated, Back Bay Patch reported.