Right off the top, we need to acknowledge that first responders are doing an impossible job, making critical decisions on a second’s notice, and taking risks that the rest of us would not.  It’s a job I wouldn’t do and honestly, couldn’t do. If it all goes well, we hardly know they ar e there. And if a situation goes badly, we are all quick to ask, “Where were they?” It’s also very easy to sit back with the benefit of distance and time and second guess things. Still … what the hell was that goat rodeo on Tuesday? The official statements on this have been few and murky, but what has been reported is that somebody saw something “suspicious” on the flyover ramp from U.S. 40 to I-80 and called dispatch.  There has been no official description of what made this particular piece of stuff that fell off a truck stand out among all the other crap that falls off trucks. You could build and furnish an entire house with debris picked up along 248.  But something stood out to somebody driving over the ramp at 60 mph. I’m picturing some Acme bomb from the “Roadrunner” cartoons, but if it fell out of a truck going highway speeds, it must have been smashed to bits, making it even harder to identify while passing over scattered bits at speed. And then, for reasons that remain a mystery, a “suspicious” bit of road debris got elevated to a bomb threat that closed the major east-west highway in the United States, snarled local traffic on U.S. 40, diverted hundreds of cars through Park City to detour to Kimball Junction to get around the “suspicious” item.  Somebody decided it must be a bomb because what else would it be? A DeWalt cordless tool charger? Nah. So we had the Summit County Sheriff’s Office, Park City Fire, Park City Police, Highway Patrol, UDOT, and who knows how many other agencies involved. The 101st Airborne might have been on alert. The leap from typical road junk to a bomb is not a small one. Hazmat, yes, pretty much once a week on I-80. Bomb? Not high on the list. How did we get to that point? Who made the decision to elevate this to DEFCON 1, and why?    The Park City Police bomb-sniffing dog, Bruno, was dispatched to Silver Creek. I love dogs. The bond with a dog is like no other, and a service dog, with all the layers of additional training and communication, is raised to a different level. So Bruno was on the scene and for some reason jumped over the concrete barrier from the flyover and landed on the pavement below. A medical helicopter was dispatched to take him to an emergency vet center in Salt Lake (vet clinics have helipads?)    The latest report was that Bruno broke two legs and his jaw, and was in good spirits. A better prognosis than expected. A backup bomb-sniffing dog was brought in. And something electronic-y with wires poking out of whatever was left of the thing after smashing on the highway and being run over a few hundred times was found. It turned out to be an e-bike battery of mass destruction. The only thing missing was Keystone Kash Patel flying the FBI’s private jet so he could personally manage this obvious terrorist plot before knocking back a few at the No Name. I’m surprised they didn’t deploy the county’s underwater rescue equipment to the storm drain detention pond by Burt Brothers, just in case of a submarine attack. I’m not saying the situation didn’t merit investigation. Maybe close the ramp to remove the debris and figure out what it was. But somebody (Chief Inspector Clouseau?) had jumped to the conclusion that it must be a bomb, so you don’t just call the UDOT shop and ask them to send a maintenance guy out there with a shovel to clean it up. So the major roads through the area got shut down. Flights were missed, medical appointments were missed, and we had a couple of hours of chaos while this got sorted out. The folks in charge have done a remarkable job of deflecting this and turning it into a story about Bruno, the heroic dog, and the efforts to save him. KUTV had a breathless reporter standing outside the vet clinic reporting the story, which was all about the dog. Comments online were all along the line of wishing Bruno a full recovery. I couldn’t agree more.  Somebody has already stepped up to cover his medical bills.  Nobody has stepped up to explain how a something as routine as a piece of consumer electronic stuff falling out of somebody’s truck got elevated to a bomb scare that merited closing two major highways, bringing in the bomb squad, and airlifting the injured dog to Salt Lake.  For the record, my health insurance doesn’t cover helicopter evacuations, but somebody — most likely you and me — will be picking up the tab for Bruno’s flight.  The response may have been entirely reasonable and responsible based on non-public information. But from what’s been made public, it appears to have been disproportionate, sort of bordering on hysteria. A little transparency goes a very long way. We need to see the dispatch transcripts on this one. Thoughts and prayers to Bruno. Tom Clyde practiced law in Park City for many years. He lives on a working ranch in Woodland and has been writing this column since 1986. 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