After a "contracting crew using miniature cameras to examine underground pipelines" spotted a large bag in a Jersey City sewage pipe this morning, they contacted the fire department and police. The police looked at the images and believed a large hand was coming out of the bag. Now, one three-hour operation later (complete with hovering news copters), WABC 7 reports there was no hand and the bag was just garbage.
As WCBS 2 puts it, "Rescue workers responded to the scene at Halliday and Forrest Streets. They set up equipment to go hunting for what they believed was a worker who fell into the manhole. They donned hazardous materials suits and entered the narrow space. All they turned up was a bag of garbage."
The underground pipes are full of hazardous gases, so the emergency workers who went 30 feet underground to examine the bag were wearing oxygen masks.
