Cocaine washes ashore in Fort Pierce

FORT PIERCE, Fla. - 22 packages of cocaine washed ashore along a Fort Pierce beach Tuesday morning.

By early afternoon there were very few people along the shore and no indication of the excitement that transpired earlier.

Lora Howard lives right along the beach. Around noon, she spotted a police helicopter hovering overhead and then, "There was a knock on my door and there were a couple of police officers standing there and on my doorstep there were 22 (packages) of coke." She said, "It was like.. whoa."

Two beachgoers had spotted the drugs washing ashore and called 9-1-1. Minutes later, police asked Howard if they could borrow her hose to wash off the drugs and if she could give them a garbage bag to wrap it up.

"They started to get a crowd everywhere so they wanted to conceal it."

She grabbed her camera and quickly took a few photos. "Afterwards I was shaking so bad from my adrenalin rush."

"This is a significant amount of cocaine," said Sgt. Dennis McWilliams.

Police showed off the haul back at the station house. One officer remarked there are some very unhappy drug dealers tonight.

58 pounds is a lot of cocaine, then you cut that and it becomes crack cocaine, cocaine you snort. We figured it out to be almost 2.2 million dollars of street value cocaine."

There have been a number of cases over the years of drugs washing ashore. But no one could remember anything this big.

There were no obvious markings to determine where the cocaine came from, but police will do an investigation to see if they can trace it. They ask if you spot any suspicious packages that wash ashore, to call 9-1-1.

Just last month 25 packages of cocaine washed up on a military beach just south of Port Canaveral.

Anyone with information is urged to contact Fort Pierce police.