BRIEFLY IN THE NEWS Suspicious package evacuates...

BRIEFLY IN

THE NEWS

Suspicious package evacuates building

Several people were evacuated from a Newport Beach office building

for about three hours Thursday afternoon after an employee received a

package leaking a dangerous chemical, officials said.

Five employees initially became sick from inhaling the fumes from

the package, but said they felt better later, Newport Beach Fire

officials said.

Firefighters responded at about 2:05 p.m. to the building in the

4400 block of Von Karman Avenue after an employee reportedly became

ill after receiving the package, which emitted an odor, said Donna

Boston, public information officer for the Fire Department.

Other employees, who tried to take the package out of the

building, also became ill, but managed to leave it in an outside

dumpster, she said.

Firefighters evacuated the three floors of the building just to be

safe, Boston said. The Orange County Sheriff’s Hazardous Materials

unit determined that the product in the package was a degreasing

agent that contained a type of organic peroxide that could have been

flammable or explosive, she said.

“But we don’t suspect anything malicious,” she said. “The package

was sent by another company who was sending out a new product.”

Employees were allowed to enter the building at about 4:50 p.m.

Boston said the leaking package damaged the office carpet, but no

further damage was reported.

Faulty connection sparks power outage

About 107 Costa Mesa residents were without power Wednesday

afternoon because of faulty cable connections between transformers,

Southern California Edison officials said.

Some suffered the outage through the night and did not get back

power until about 11 a.m. Thursday, spokesman Marlon Walker said. The

power went out at about 2 p.m. Wednesday.

The outage happened north of Pierpont, south of Traverse and west

of Thames, he said.

-- Deepa Bharath