[MeinBlutIstBlau]

>Tourists at neighboring casinos bet on when the bomb would go off, or if it would go off. After the bomb detonated, crowds cheered and reveled from a safe distance.

Completely unhinged tourists. Hotel explodes and people cheer cause they probably won money.

[beervirus]

Meh, no one was hurt. Vegas is all about spectacle, and this was certainly a spectacle.

[geocrasher]

This wasn't Vegas, this was Tahoe. My grandparents owned a home there not long after this happened, and I remember there being a lot of talk about it. But when this happened I was just a kid. This also wasn't long after Mount St. Helen blew up. My parents and I lived in Carson City at the time. I remember the ash falling. At first I thought it was snow! There was no ash from the Harvey's explosion though. It wasn't that big :p

[beervirus]

Oops, good point. What I said still mostly applies to Tahoe though.

[anonu]

The schadenfreude is killing me. Im sure many working class people lost their jobs. A hotel was demolished causing substantial monetary loss for its owners and investors. The FBI had egg on their face.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

It wasn't demolished. The structural integrity was not damaged, $18M was spent on repairs, and it reopened about 10 months later. Given the owner's attitude towards his staff, it seems likely they would all have been re-hired if they were still looking for work.

[tyingq]

Interesting. You wouldn't expect that given these pictures[1] and phrases like "creating a five-story chasm in the casino".

[1] https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/stories/2009/august/a...

[bombcar]

Evacuate the casino, but leave some cars in the parking lot (lol).

[JKCalhoun]

I'm having a hard time beating up on the FBI.

The only other viable outcome I can see is if they gave the extortionists the money and caught them later — and they certainly would have caught them. But there is no guarantee the same scenario would not have unfolded with the bomb going off. And having given in to the demands of the extortionist probably would have inspired a wave of similar crimes.

[awb]

A criminal spectacle, that’s the difference. Odd that betting was allowed on the outcome of a crime.

[IshKebab]

What should they do? Mourn the loss of some concrete and steel?

[MeinBlutIstBlau]

I meant in a tongue and cheek kind of way. I was thinking it was funny. Apparently HN is full of people that interpret text literally and cannot infer nuance whatsoever.

[IshKebab]

I mean it wasn't very funny and HN is full of people who do make crazy statements like that seriously...