Fort Totten Park closed off for hours after a National Park Service (NPS) employee found two metal canisters on Tuesday afternoon.
The NPS said the metal canisters were found in a mound of soil along Farragut Street.
The closure caused concern for some neighbors–and headaches for commuters. Metro trains on the Red and Green lines bypassed the Fort Totten station for about three hours.
“I thought it was crazy. I didn't know what was going on,” Cynthia Hampton, who lives nearby, said. “I couldn’t get down the street at all. It’s been blocked off.”
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She said her husband noticed something was going on at around 2 p.m.
The find comes a few years after a similar discovery turned out to be a weapon from WWI. Officials say they found a similar canister in a different part of the park back in 2020, which turned out to be an empty, unfused and unused, WWI munition.
So out of caution, Fort Totten Drive was blocked off from Gallatin down to Brooklyn Avenue NE. The NPS said the canisters will be analyzed at Quantico.
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NPS is determining the next steps to evaluate the area.
“They should check the whole park just to make it really safe. I mean, if you find one, there’s probably more out there,” Hampton said. “[It’s] scary. I mean we take our dog out there and they’re running around–you just don't know what’s there.”
While neighbors like Hampton are not thrilled by the activity, some lifelong Washingtonians like Clinton Price, who owns the property across the street from the discovery, aren’t phased.
“I feel safe. I've been here like 38 years and eh,” Price said. “I guess growing up in the city, I’ve seen a lot more dangerous things than that. I mean, I run this store, and I’ve been robbed like eight times–at gunpoint–so this don’t really make me afraid to see this.”
“They’re going to find it, clear it up and be done,” he added.
Fort Totten Park is open, but NPS advised staying on the Metropolitan Branch Trail and grassy areas of the fort itself. People should not take unofficial trails in the woods.
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