Scene cleared up here, this is the manhole CCSERT used to bring up evidence @news4buffalopic.twitter.com/rjzltuIiCs
— Callan Gray (@CallanGray4) August 8, 2016
It’s not at all uncommon for police to find meth labs. Just in the past couple of days, police have found a meth lab in Detroit, a one-pot meth lab in Ohio,another three in Wisconsin, a "shake-and-bake" meth lab in Alabama, a lab in Pennsylvania less than 500 feet away from a school, and, presumably, many other meth labs that didn't make the local news.
But it’s not every day that someone finds an underground meth lab.
Police in Amherst, New York, just outside of Buffalo, were on a routine preventive patrol, spot-checking places that people “might be using for no good,” Captain Scott Chamberlain told the local NBC affiliate. In a culvert below a Walmart parking lot, police found evidence of meth production, in an underground space tall enough to stand up in.
This discovery did not interrupt the normal course of business at the Walmart. “As Walmart shoppers ran their errands, two first responders in full hazmat suits were lowered beneath the parking lot through a man hole,” WIVB reported.
Crews are coming up from underground @news4buffalopic.twitter.com/M2caFSNyI6
— Callan Gray (@CallanGray4) August 8, 2016
Police are now considering securing the culvert so that people can no longer use it for such purposes.
Every day, we highlight one newly found object, curiosity or wonder. Discover something amazing? Tell us about it! Send your finds to sarah.laskow@atlasobscura.com.