Mercy Hospital is our local Catholic Hospital. The Des Moines Register reports:

“Hospital employees at Mercy Medical Center were ordered to search their immediate area Tuesday afternoon when a bomb threat was called in to local dispatch.

Dispatch received a call at about 4:10 p.m. from a 911-only telephone. The caller said there was a bomb planted in the hospital at 1111 6th Ave. and that police had 20 minutes before it detonated.

No explosion occurred and Mercy’s public safety officers completed a thorough check of the building, according to police reports.

Police have not identified a suspect, though the call has been traced to somewhere in the 29th Street and High Street area.”

Huh? What does “no explosion occurred mean? There was a bomb, but it did not detonate? There was no bomb and, hence, no explosion?