FORT PIERCE ― An unexploded World War II aerial bomb was detonated off a beach in Fort Pierce on Saturday, according to the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office.

A construction crew dredging sand on the beach discovered the bomb and called emergency responders to the scene shortly before 11 a.m., Sheriff Ken Mascara said. Fort Pierce police and the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office bomb squad responded to the scene in the 600 block of South Ocean Drive.

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Police cleared swimmers and beach-goers from the area. It took the bomb squad more than 2 hours to detonate the bomb, according to the sheriff’s office. No injuries were reported.

Robert Odell said he could hear the blast from his home on South Ocean Drive.

“I was just sitting in my house and I just heard a loud explosion,” Odell said. “And when I came outside, there was police and they told everybody to get off the beach.”

Another piece of unexploded WWII ordnance was found off the beach in April 2022.

Fort Pierce was home to a naval base in the 1940s. Across the United States during World War II, the War Department acquired properties for military training. One of those was the Fort Pierce Naval Amphibious Training Base, a 19,280-acre site that extended from Vero Beach to Jensen Beach.

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