In what has been a tumultuous past week in terms of bomb scares for the Southern California community, Huntington Beach City Hall was evacuated this morning after a package arrived that looked like it could have a bomb inside.

Lt. John Domingo of the Huntington Beach Police Department has reported that around 8:45 this morning the package was discovered at the 2000 Main St. City Hall building.  Upon discovery, the package was placed in a stairwell and the building was promptly evacuated. 

"What they saw was a firework, firecracker-type devices and there was a substance," Huntington Beach Fire Marshal Bob Culhane said. "So what our hazardous material team is going to do is take a sample of that substance."

Culhane noted that the Orange County Bomb Squad will analyze the envelope to determine its purpose, origin, and any substances present in it. The device inside that initially raised suspicion has been determined to be harmless.

In total, about 300 workers had to leave City Hall for the remainder of the morning, but were able to return to work at around 12:45 p.m. The local high school, located right across the street, was also very briefly shut down but was able to resume normal functioning soon after.

This is the latest in a string of bomb scares for Southern California, all of which have occurred this past week after the Boston Marathon bombing. So far all of the scares have been unsubstantiated, leading to no bomb detonations.

Last week a man approached a woman on a Metrolink train and stated that there was a bomb on board. Both the train, its station, and adjacent streets had to be evacuated. Also last week Cal State Los Angeles had to evacuate classes after a bomb threat was called in, as did a local Hooters in an unrelated incident.