Time was, the mundane job of delivering phone books to businesses would not raise anyone’s attention.

But in the era of Homeland Security, nothing is ever taken for granted.

Thus, the call at 12:11 p.m. Wednesday from a security guard at the Western Area Power Administration on Crossroad Boulevard in northeast Loveland.

The guard reported that a white male in a blue pickup truck had dropped a package at their entrance gate, and had driven off before he could be contacted.

For the ensuing two hours, traffic was shut down throughout the vicinity.

More than two dozen Larimer County Sheriff’s deputies, a bunch of Loveland police officers, Larimer County’s bomb squad, a Thompson Valley Emergency Medical Services ambulance, two Loveland Fire and Rescue Authority trucks, a pair of FBI agents in SUVs bearing U.S. Department of Homeland Security door emblems and even a Berthoud Police patrol car swarmed over the area.

Oh, and the robot.

The little remotely controlled vehicle that the Larimer County Sheriff’s bomb squad sends in to do the dangerous work found not pressure cookers but yellow pages in the package.

“You’d rather be safe than sorry,” Larimer Sheriff spokesman John Schultz said. “In this case, it gave us a chance to test the protocols with other agencies, and we were pleased with the results.”

Police radio communications during the first minutes of the scare contained discussion of an evacuation, the radius of which would be determined by the size of the package.

Initial plans called for evacuation of the King Buick GMC dealership, the closest business to the mysterious package.

But those were canceled, along with evacuations of the Clear Channel broadcasting building and the Thunder Mountain Harley-Davidson store just north of WAPA.

At 2:27 p.m., after the robot was tucked back into its truck, the final roadblock in the area was lifted.

Tom Hacker can be reached at 669-5050, ext. 521, or thacker@reporter-herald.com.