State Center is a charming little town of 1,391, located in Marshall County and known as the “rose capital of Iowa.” It is generally a quiet place, except on New Year’s Eve. For the past four years on Dec. 31, State Center has been rocked by a thunderous explosion.
Long-time resident Amber Coffman told KCCI, “I was wondering what it was. I thought maybe it was the trains hitting each other or something.”
“Or something” indeed. While authorities cannot positively identify the origin of the mysterious explosions, State Center police Chief Jon Thomas is confident he knows the cause.
“An explosive called Tannerite or something similar to it,” he said. “We are talking a significant amount of chemicals.”
Tannerite is the brand name for a “binary explosive” that comes in a kit of basically two chemicals: aluminum powder and ammonium nitrate, the primary ingredient used by terrorist Timothy McVeigh in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and killed 168 people. But because the chemicals are, by themselves, non-explosive, they are not federally regulated and, as Chief Thomas observed, “…they are legal to own.” His office is not investigating the New Year’s Eve explosion.
Tannerite cannot be detonated with a fuse like TNT but must be set off by shooting it with a high-powered rifle. It is marketed primarily as an exploding target used by long-distance shooters to indicate their target has been hit. Tannerite is also sold as a “boom box” kit with colored powder for “gender reveal” parties.
At a gender reveal party in Knoxville in 2019, the parents-to-be thought they would announce the baby’s gender with a bang. Unfortunately, their modified boom box created a hail of flying shrapnel that instantly killed one of their guests.
In El Dorado, Calif., in 2020, a gender reveal party explosion ended up burning 22,000 acres, killing a firefighter. A gender reveal party in New Hampshire in 2021 used 80 pounds of the explosives that shook the town of Kingston and cracked basement foundations. In New York, 2021, at gender reveal party, the explosive device malfunctioned, killing the father and injuring his brother.
In 2015, NBC’s Today Show did a segment, “Bombs For Sale” on the subject of Tannerite. It high-lighted the accidents associated with the product, including a woman watching her neighbor shoot two pounds of exploding targets in a refrigerator that blew apart and struck her from 150 yards away, severing her hand. David Pressley, 32 of Monrow, Ga., filled a riding lawn mower with the exploding targets and shot it with a rifle. A piece of the shrapnel took off one of his legs below the knee.
When the Today Show contacted Tannerite Sports, LLC for comment on the safety of their product, they replied, “No additional regulations are needed beyond current laws because the product is safe when used correctly,” adding, “Only girly-men want to regulate Tannerite Rifle products.” What other gender reveal do you need?
YouTube has numerous videos by yahoos blowing things up with Tannerite, narrowly escaping the flying debris. And sometimes not escaping. One video shows a rowdy bunch of guys shooting a loaded microwave. It blows up sending pieces whizzing past the shooter, one striking him in the face. “It got your nose good!” congratulates one bystander. In another video, a man attempts to knock down a brick grain silo with Tannerite. The explosion causes bricks to fly in all directions like they’re shot from a cannon, one just missing his head. The Tannerite website shows one of their two-pound cannisters with directions: 1. Mix it. 2. Shake it. 3. Shoot it. They might add No. 4. Duck!