The Associated Press
NAPLES, Fla. (AP) -- Officials shut down Alligator Alley, the main East-West highway crossing the Everglades, and people in two vehicles were detained after a possible terrorist threat, police said.
Bomb-sniffing dogs alerted authorities to material in both vehicles, said E.J. Picolo of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Explosive charges were being used to blast open what appeared to be a backpack taken from one of the vehicles. A suitcase was also set out beside the car.
“The information we have is very specific,” Picolo said.
He said the three people had not been arrested, but were being detained.
The Florida Highway Patrol shut down a 20-mile stretch of Interstate 75 shortly after 1 a.m., when the vehicles were stopped.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation had issued an advisory Thursday after a waitress in Calhoun, Ga., in the northwestern part of that state, told police she overheard three men of Middle Eastern descent discussing terrorist plans Wednesday night.
The Georgia woman said the men were talking about amounts of explosives and warned that Americans would “cry on 9/13,” said Miami Police Lt. Bill Schwartz, quoting from the Georgia advisory.
Alligator Alley is the main road from Naples to Fort Lauderdale across the Everglades in South Florida.
The highway patrol said the road was blocked off from a toll booth east of Naples to State Road 29.