MILWAUKEE (AP) – There are at least two places not to joke about blowing something up – at an airport and at a convenience store down the road from a nuclear power plant.

A 23-year-old man from Hull, Mass., apparently learned the lesson the hard way on Tuesday.

He entered the convenience store about 7:15 a.m. and asked for directions to Nuclear Road, site of the Point Beach nuclear power plant. He and the clerk chatted for a bit, and as he was leaving the clerk heard him say he “came to blow up the place.”

The clerk called police and reported the man, whose name was not released. Officers tracked down his rental car at the power plant and detained him for questioning.

He told FBI agents he was a contractor reporting for his first day at the plant. He said the clerk must have misunderstood him, because what he actually said was that he “hoped he wouldn’t blow up the place” because of his inexperience, police said.

Authorities searched his vehicle and found no evidence of a threat.

The power plant is on the Lake Michigan shore at Two Rivers, about 30 miles south of Green Bay. It’s owned by FPL Energy, based in Juno Beach, Fla.

Before the miscommunication was sorted out, plant officials took the notification of a “credible threat” very seriously.

About 500 employees were on site when the notification came in, said plant spokeswoman Sara Cassidy. Some 450 nonessential employees were evacuated to the plant’s visitor center, where they remained from about 8:30 a.m. to noon.

“There’s a zero-tolerance policy whenever you have anything like this,” Cassidy said. “If we have a situation where people make a threat, we’re going to make sure we’re taking every precautionary measure we can.”

AP-ES-04-08-08 2025EDT