VIRGINIA BEACH — Amid a search for damage and sabotage generated by the sighting of a suspicious scuba diver near Naval Station Norfolk, officials also searched for a bomb after a threat was made to a ship docked at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story on Monday.
U.S. Navy officials received a bomb threat via telephone to the USS Oak Hill (LSD-51) around 2:30 p.m., said Lt. Michael Hatfield, public affairs officer for Expeditionary Strike Group 4.
Operations stopped on the Harpers Ferry-class dock landing ship, which was in port at the base, for an unspecified amount of time. Officials from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service were on the scene, Hatfield said.
As a general rule, during bomb threats, the area around an impacted ship is secured and sailors are notified not to go near the area, Hatfield added.
“We swept the ship and found no threat,” he said.
The call came about five hours after sailors standing watch on pier seven at Naval Station Norfolk spotted what appeared to be a suspicious scuba diver swimming within the base’s secured perimeter around 9 a.m.
Naval Station Norfolk Public Affairs Officer Kelly Wirfel could not confirm how close the diver came to the pier, but said that the area is blocked off by a “floating fence” that is “very visible.”
Naval scuba divers searched all of the ships on the base’s 13 piers “inch by inch,” Wirfel said. The Navy also used an explosive unit to search for signs of sabotage, explosive mines and damage to the ships.
“We were looking for anything foreign,” Wirfel said.
Although Naval Station Norfolk was not locked down, the 13 piers were evacuated of non-essential personnel until the ships were cleared at 7 p.m. The investigation into the diver is ongoing, Wirfel said.
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