Emergency crews investigate a 'suspicious package' at Armstrong World Industries headquarters on Columbia Avenue in Manor Township.
Emergency crews investigate a 'suspicious package' at Armstrong World Industries headquarters on Columbia Avenue in Manor Township.
Emergency crews investigate a 'suspicious package' at Armstrong World Industries headquarters on Columbia Avenue in Manor Township.
Emergency crews investigate a 'suspicious package' at Armstrong World Industries headquarters on Columbia Avenue in Manor Township.
Emergency crews investigate a 'suspicious package' at Armstrong World Industries headquarters on Columbia Avenue in Manor Township.
Emergency crews investigate a 'suspicious package' at Armstrong World Industries headquarters on Columbia Avenue in Manor Township.
Emergency crews investigate a 'suspicious package' at Armstrong World Industries headquarters on Columbia Avenue in Manor Township.
Emergency crews investigate a 'suspicious package' at Armstrong World Industries headquarters on Columbia Avenue in Manor Township.
A mysterious package was delivered to the Armstrong World Industries headquarters on Columbia Avenue on Thursday, but investigators said it contained no hazardous materials.
It was the second such scare in Lancaster County in the past week.
Around 11:15 a.m. Thursday, FBI agents and a state police bomb squad were called to the facility at 2500 Columbia Ave., Manor Township, after a mysterious package arrived from Egypt.
"When they opened it, there was a strange odor," Duane Hagelgans, fire commissioner for Blue Rock Fire Rescue, said. "So they closed up and called fire and emergency for help."
When haz-mat crews arrived, Hagelgans said, they "made a determination" to summon the FBI because of the package's overseas source.
When FBI investigators arrived, the state police bomb squad was called in.
"FBI protocol, with a package like this, is for a bomb squad" to investigate, Hagelgans said.
Authorities declared the package contained no hazardous substances. Authorities could not determine the source of the odor.
"We did a whole bunch of testing and sampling and basically came away with determining that we don't know what the odor was," Hagelgans said.
He said at least three people, including a Manor Township police officer, "definitely detected something."
"We followed all the proper protocols, like we're supposed to," Hagelgans said.
About 40 employees were evacuated from the building, Hagelgans said. Five who came into contact with the package were quarantined but later released.
The affected area, Hagelgans said, was the facility's shipping and receiving dock.
"Luckily, on a nice day like (Thursday), they were on the outside," Hagelgans said.
The FBI is taking over the investigation.
Last Friday, about 200 workers were evacuated from the Lancaster County Assistance Office on Manor Street for several hours. The block was closed to traffic while investigators examined an envelope containing a white powder that had arrived in the mailroom there.
Six assistance office employees were taken to a hospital to be decontaminated and examined, as a precaution.
The county haz-mat team was called in, and the FBI also was briefly involved in that investigation.
No hazardous materials were found.
Staff writer Cindy Stauffer contributed to this report.
