Transportation security

How a Conspiracy Theorist’s Call About a Dirty Bomb Shut Down Part of a Port

A section of the Port of Charleston in South Carolina was shut down for several hours Wednesday night after a tip from a far-right YouTube conspiracy theorist warned that a dirty bomb might be on a container ship moored there, officials said.

A section of the Port of Charleston was closed for about seven hours as nearly a dozen federal, state and local agencies searched and turned up nothing.

The episode began around 8 p.m. on Wednesday when the Coast Guard said it received two phone calls about a potential dirty bomb — a crude explosive rigged to spray radioactive material — aboard the container ship Maersk Memphis, Lt. James B. Zorn, a Coast Guard spokesman, said on Thursday.