LAWRENCEVILLE - The Gwinnett County 911 Center was evacuated for about an hour Monday morning because of a fire extinguishing system.<br />
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Gwinnett Police Cpl. Edwin Ritter said in a press statement that five employees from the Center were transported to an area hospital for evaluation, while another was treated at the scene.<br />
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The employees suffered respiratory issues caused by the fire suppression system.<br />
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"None of them are life-threatening, none of them are critical. We also had one of those employees who had a ceiling tile fall on her head," Gwinnett County Police Cpl. Michele Pihera said of the employees and their conditions.<br />
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All but one of the employees had been released from the hospital by 4:00 p.m.<br />
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The Center notified officers of an emergency situation at 9:56 a.m. after some employees reported hearing a "boom," although authorities believe this may have been the fire extinguisher turning on.<br />
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A Communications Supervisor smelled smoke, although no fire or smoke was actually spotted in the building.<br />
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The fire suppression system was activated, which uses the fire extinguishing agent heptaflorapropane instead of a traditional water sprinkler system, and the gas it dispenses is described as an "irritant with short lasting effects" that is designed to snuff fires out.<br />
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"The fire suppression system is an alternate system to your typical sprinklers, and the reason we have that is because we don't want to damage any of our electronic equipment should we have a fire in the building," Pihera said.<br />
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The system has a 30 second delay to it, allowing people to cancel it before it turns on completely, but this was reportedly not activated due the smell of smoke.<br />
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Several off-duty 911 Center workers came in to assist as they transferred the calling center duties to the GCPD headquarters in Lawrenceville.<br />
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The 911 service resumed by 11:00 a.m., and the 911 Center will remain closed until the investigation is finished. Staff members were in the center late in the afternoon cleaning the 911 terminals.
