City IT workers among evacuees in New York

Three employees of a Saskatoon technology company were among thousands forced onto the streets of New York City after suspicious packages were sent to Hillary Clinton, former U.S. president Barack Obama and CNN.

Vendasta Technologies Inc. chief marketing officer Jeff Tomlin and two colleagues were in New York City attending the Yext Onward digital marketing conference at Jazz at Lincoln Center when police officers entered on Wednesday around 10:30 a.m.

“They came up the escalators and started yelling, ‘Everyone needs to leave the building now! This isn’t a drill! Everybody out!’ ” Tomlin said by phone about three hours after the evacuation began.

“So everybody calmly packed up and made their way down and out of the building. We didn’t have any information at the time, and they weren’t giving any further information … I started learning more information from the news.”

CNN’S headquarters at the Time Warner Center was evacuated due to a suspicious package. The network broadcast footage of its staffers outside on the Manhattan streets below. Jazz at Lincoln Center is part of the same complex.

Jeff Zucker, president of CNN, wrote in a letter to employees that the building was “evacuated out of an abundance of caution” after the package was found in the mailroom.

New York police said officers were “investigating a suspicious package in Columbus Circle,” which is where the Time Warner Center is located.

Tomlin received two emergency alerts to his cellphone: one advising people in the area of West 58th Street and Eighth Avenue near Central Park to “shelter in place immediately” and a second stating

that the suspicious device was safely removed by the New York police bomb squad.

The Time Warner Center evacuation came after the Secret Service intercepted packages containing “potential explosive devices” addressed to former secretary of state Hillary Clinton in New York and former president Obama in Washington.

The devices were recovered not long after an explosive device was found in a mailbox at the home in Bedford, N.Y., of George Soros, the liberal philanthropist who is a frequent target of criticism from far-right groups.

Tomlin said he and others ordered to leave the massive Manhattan building spent about 90 minutes outside before they got the all-clear to go back inside. He said the conference was set to resume Wednesday afternoon.

“It was oddly routine-feeling. There weren’t people panicking out on the street. There were a lot of police vehicles across the street but there weren’t sirens constantly wailing and police running about,” he said.

“It was oddly calm and routine — a whole bunch of people standing around waiting to get an update.”

Tomlin, who was scheduled to speak at the conference in the afternoon, said he was still waiting to learn if his talk would go ahead. A company spokeswoman subsequently confirmed that it did.