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Search of Summit Hill home in second day

About 30 FBI agents descended on the Summit Hill home of a town constable candidate Saturday morning in their second day of retrieving what officials have so far only described as "possible bomb-making materials."

The agents were accompanied by state police bomb units, Lehigh County Special Operations Team, Bethlehem Fire Department hazmat members, Carbon County's emergency management team, the Lehigh/Lausanne Special Services Rehab Unit, Summit Hill's Diligence Fire Company and local police and fire police.The ominous looking vehicles are out of place in this small, sleepy town, where neighbors chat across front porches and kids bicycle along quiet streets. Fire police redirect traffic headed to a funeral service at St. Joseph's Catholic Church, a stone's throw from the strip of bright yellow warning tape stretched across the street.Constable candidate Jude Yuricheck's father, Paul Yuricheck, discovered questionable items in the basement of their home at 416 W. Ludlow St. at about 10 p.m. Thursday night.Local police called the state police bomb unit after seeing the items.Carbon County Emergency Management Coordinator Mark Nalesnik said Friday "possible bomb-making" items had been found in the basement, but there was no bomb. Officials said some of the items were legal, but others were not.Officials have yet to say exactly what they have found. People in hazmat suits brought a number of items out of the house Friday. Those items were analyzed by the Lehigh County team.Although the block was cordoned off by yellow tape and orange cones, residents were not evacuated.At about 10 a.m., the FBI and others rolled up to the house from the staging area at the Diligence Fire Company, and few blocks east. They unloaded black cases, set up blue plastic tents, an inflated white plastic tent, and a row of folding chairs.Reporters were asked to stay at a point about block and a half away from the house.Neighbor Rita Bennyhoff was walking her son's husky, Caesar."I'm very surprised. I know the owner of the house, and I know his son," she said.Bennyhoff said she wasn't afraid.County Deputy Emergency Management Coordinator Kevin Steber said the FBI would lead the day's activities."We're going to continue getting samples of the items as we did yesterday, for analysis on site," he said.The FBI is in charge of the operation.The bi-level house, white with black shutters, sits behind a rusted metal fence adorned with 11 small American flags on wooden sticks. A square of soggy cardboard slumps against the fence, a white sign with "Write in Jude Yuricheck, constable of Summit Hill, 22 years of law enforcement experience" sags against the cardboard, the silver duct tape that held it to the cardboard still clinging to its sides.In the small front yard, a small white wooden cross juts from the center of a planter made from a tire painted blue. On the cross are faded red, white and blue artificial carnations and a small weathered American flag.A large yellow plastic barrel sits on the short cement walkway from the front steps to the sidewalk. Small red, white and blue lights twine around the metal handrail, and faded red ribbons are fastened to each side of the enclosed stoop.Curtains are drawn tight across the home's two front windows.

CHRIS PARKER/TIMES NEWS The home at 416 W. Ludlow St., Summit Hill, where federal agents are sifting through possibly hazardous items.