{"id":19086,"date":"2015-07-24T14:04:25","date_gmt":"2015-07-24T20:04:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/krtnradio.com\/?p=19086"},"modified":"2015-07-24T14:04:25","modified_gmt":"2015-07-24T20:04:25","slug":"odors-prompt-huerfano-courthouse-evacuation-csp-hazmat-called-in-tuesday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/2015\/07\/24\/odors-prompt-huerfano-courthouse-evacuation-csp-hazmat-called-in-tuesday\/","title":{"rendered":"Odors prompt Huerfano courthouse evacuation CSP HazMat called in Tuesday"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Eric Mullens
\"WJ<\/a>WALSENBURG \u2014 \u00a0Huerfano Fire Protection District volunteers responded Tuesday, July 14 at about 10:45 am to the county courthouse on a report of a strong odor in the building\u2019s basement.
At about 11:15 the order was given to evacuate the entire courthouse due to an off-gas situation.
The Colorado State Patrol\u2019s HazMat response team was requested and the courthouse remained closed until the problem was mitigated by hazardous material specialists.
A CSP Hazmat technician arrived at the scene and officially cleared the building, ending the evacuation at approximately 1 pm.
Scene reports indicate there was a sewer backup into the building\u2019s boiler room and someone put chlorine onto the material, and caused a chemical reaction producing phosgene gas, which necessitated evacuation of the entire building.
Phosgene gas was used in WWI as a blister agent on the battlefield. Newman said he was briefed and told the gas issue was contained to the boiler room and CSP announced the courthouse was safe to reenter by early afternoon Tuesday.
\u201cEvacuating the whole courthouse might have been a drastic measure,\u201d Newman said, \u201cbut better safe than sorry.\u201d
Last week, the City of Walsenburg\u2019s vac truck was working on the sewer lines at the courthouse. \u00a0Newman said when the city was cleaning the sewer line it caused a backup at the sheriff\u2019s building, but they did not attempt to use chlorine to clean it up.
Newman said reports indicate when the city swept the sewer line last week, a large amount of byproduct was forced into the basement under the boiler room area at the courthouse.<\/p>\n

\"Huerfano<\/a>
Huerfano County Sheriff Bruce Newman (center) talks with the county director of the Office of Emergency Management Don Mercier (left) about securing the courthouse until CSP HazMat personnel arrive to work on the odor issue reported Tuesday, July 14. Photos by Eric Mullens<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\n
\"Huerfano<\/a>
Huerfano County employees evacuated the courthouse Tuesday morning when sewer overflow in the basement was believed to have been initially treated with chlorine, causing an irritating gas problem. One employee reported blisters on his hands from the incident. The Colorado State Patrol\u2019s Haz Mat team were called in to evaluate and contain the problem.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Eric MullensWALSENBURG \u2014 \u00a0Huerfano Fire Protection District volunteers responded Tuesday, July 14 at about 10:45 am to the county courthouse on a report of a strong odor in the building\u2019s basement. At about 11:15 the order was given to evacuate the entire courthouse due to an off-gas situation. The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","entry","rows-excerpt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}