IRS center shuts down after hazardous material scare
By Patrick Crowley
The Cincinnati Enquirer
COVINGTON - A 3,500-employee IRS office in Covington is under a full lockdown today, and hazardous materials experts are investigating after workers reported a suspicious sticky substance in an envelope that had been handled by several people.
Emergency workers brought one woman wearing a blue business suit out of the building and began scrubbing her down in a large black tub. After scrubbing her, they removed her clothes, wrapped her twice plastic and took her to St. Elizabeth's Hospital North for further decontamination and observation.
Otherwise, no one was being allowed in or out of the Cincinnati IRS Center on Fourth street, and fire department hazmat teams were seen taking hoses into the building.
Officials placed the suspicious letter in a can, which was placed in a police car and driven to a waiting Hamilton County Sheriff's Office helicopter and flown away.
Chris Kerns, a spokesman for the IRS said the building, which can have as many as 3,500 workers in offices and 188 children in its childcare facility, is in ''standard procedure lockdown.''
The center, which processed 20 million individual and business tax returns from seven states, has had about 20 similar incidents in past 5 years.
But this lockdown, coming as the nation anticipates retribution for the U.S. bombing of Taliban and terrorist targets in Afghanistan comes only a day after six people were hosed down by hazardous materials crews at a doctor's office on Montgomery Road in Sycamore Township , following delivery of a suspicious package Monday. <<
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