SUNBURY -- Within moments the Northumberland County Prison turned into a towering inferno as flames and smoke billowed from the roof Wednesday afternoon.
By that time, fire crews and prison employees had already snapped into action with their evacuation process.
In the end all 208 inmates, along with prison personnel, got out of the building safely.
“Hat`s off to the corrections officers and police and fire department for a great job because you`re trying to get these people out to make sure they`re safe, they`re inmates, but you want to make sure they`re safe and you want to make sure the community is safe as well,” said Lackawanna County Republican Commissioner Pat O’Malley.
O`Malley spent 15 years working in a prison as a corrections officer.
He commended diligence in security when getting those inmates out.
“You have people from general population, you have people from restricted housing units, you`ve got a lot of people at you have to get out of that prison and they`re designated under different areas, so you have to bring them out separately and that`s where with Northumberland, it`s amazing the job that they did,” said O’Malley.
O`Malley says the Lackawanna County Prison in Scranton has an evacuation plan in place for all types of emergency situations.
That plans takes into consideration the fact that the prison is in a residential neighborhood, just like the prison in Sunbury.
For people living around the prison, they have no fears of problems arising if the building had to be evacuated.
“It seems like it`s pretty safe and well taken care of, I think that they`re first priority would be to make that the neighborhood was safe, I have an uncle that works over at the prison and everything,” said Scott McConlogue.