North High School was evacuated Friday afternoon and hundreds of worried parents rushed to the school after authorities said a pipe bomb had been found in a boys bathroom on campus.
Just after 2 p.m., the sheriff’s bomb squad determined the device was not a bomb – it was a piece of plumbing tool.
"There is modernization work going on at North High,” Kern High School District Spokesman John Teves said in a statement. "It is not known at this time how the tool, which I was told was somewhat similar in appearance to a pipe bomb, wound up in a boys’ bathroom.
"There is no longer a belief that the device is dangerous or that the students and staff are in any danger.
Students had been moved from classrooms to the school’s football stadium after the intital discovery. Streets in the area were blocked as officers from three agencies and all over town came to campus.
School personnel and most deputies were told to stay away from the device until specially trained experts could examine it.
