The Aspen Daily News reports:
Authorities received a tip that alleged explosive devices were placed around the city.
A terrible night for restaurants and downtown businesses to have to close.
Some people went to evacuation centers set up at schools, but most visitors were holed up in hotels outside the evacuated 16-block area....Witnesses said the evacuation zone stretched from Original Street on the east to Monarch Street on the west, and from Main Street on the north to Cooper Street on the south.
The packages were left at two banks this afternoon. The police first closed off a small area and then expanded it. Around 3pm, people eating in restaurants were evacuated. Fireworks on the mountain were also canceled.
The FBI, ATF, Red Cross and local bomb squads were called in. It sounds like there was also a lot of confusion:
The Molly Gibson Lodge near downtown was evacuated at 5:45 p.m., according to the on-call manager, who only gave his name as Shad. He estimated about 120 people were directed across the street to another hotel. About 45 minutes later, he said they received a reverse-911 call saying that the Molly Gibson was outside the danger area, and that it was safe for its guests to return.
No word yet on when businesses can reopen.
Update: Blanning has been involved a previous weird incident in Aspen. From the Rocky Mountain News, July 29, 1994 (available on Lexis.com):
Man With Noose Surrenders on Roof
An embittered man with a rope around his neck held off authorities from a perch on the roof of the Pitkin County Courthouse in Aspen for seven hours Thursday.
''One way over the edge or one way walking,'' James C. Blanning, 58, of Carbondale told KSPN radio newsman Rick Weiss, one of several reporters who stretched out an attic window for an interview.
''I don't think he's going to jump,'' Weiss said. ''I think he was happy with the attention he's getting, and we're going to cover this until he's done. ''
Weiss was right. Blanning surrendered at 7:03 p.m., said Hilary Fletcher Smith of the Pitkin County Sheriff's Department. No criminal charges had been filed. Weiss said one end of the rope was around Blanning's neck and the other was around an ornament on the landmark courthouse.
Blanning fiddled with a pocketknife as he talked, but he never made eye contact, even though they were about 2 feet apart, the reporter said. Blanning said in the interview that he was protesting ''for the working people, the people who actually work eight hours a day, 40 hours a week.'' He said working people ''have been driven out'' of expensive resort communities such as Aspen ''by the elitists or whatever you want to call them.''
He also lamented the June 6 suicide of his friend Stefan Albouy, 34, a miner. Albouy gained notoriety in the 1980s for a proposal to mine marble in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness Area.
The project attracted powerful opponents, including Sen. Tim Wirth, D-Colo., and the Sierra Club. Blanning called Albouy ''one of the finest people who ever came down the road.'' ''You reach a certain point where you have to make a statement,'' he said.
Blanning also told John Colson of the Aspen Daily Times that he was angry that the Colorado Supreme Court had rejected hearing a mining-claims case that had gone against him. Blanning, who acted as his own attorney, ''was basically told he could represent himself in court but he couldn't represent his mining corporation,'' Colson said.
The spectacle, which began about noon, drew crowds of curious locals and tourists, who were kept behind a rope barrier as the courthouse was cleared. Some in the crowd videotaped authorities handing Blanning suntan lotion and water; temperatures were in the high 80s. Some yelled at Blanning to jump.
''About half think he's serious and half think it's a joke,'' said Neil Bishop, manager of the KFC Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant across Main Street from the courthouse. Negotiators had determined that Blanning was ''not a threat to public safety,'' Smith said.
Blanning apparently climbed a little-used staircase from the courthouse's second floor to the attic and then made his way to his perch, about 60 feet above the ground. Weiss said he began to broadcast the interview with Blanning live over a cellular telephone, but authorities intervened. So he tape-recorded a 10-minute interview.
The radio reporter said Blanning seemed incoherent. ''He said he wanted to stew in his own juices,'' Weiss said.
