Mystery powder probed

Ste. Julie building was evacuated

Regional police and firefighters in Ste. Julie converged on a commercial building at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday – removing and isolating about 20 individuals after an employee in a Canada Post branch there reported the discovery of a suspicious powder described as “very pale-coloured,” said Sgt. Pierre Tremblay.

It was the second such suspicious-substance find of the day in the Montreal region.

The evacuation occurred in a commercial strip at 461 St. Joseph Blvd. in the South Shore community.

Authorities swept up people who were working in or only visiting the postal branch, as well as those in an adjacent health-services clinic when the discovery was reported.

At least two people on the Ste. Julie site who had been in contact with the powder told authorities they were experiencing symptoms such as respiratory or skin irritation.

However, police spokesperson Tremblay took pains to stress that no physical causal link had been established between the mystery powder and such symptoms.

The powder was reported to have been found at the bottom of a postal bin, Tremblay said.

That bin had been shipped to the Ste. Julie Canada Post branch “this morning,” Tremblay stated – from the sprawling Canada Post mail-sorting centre in St. Laurent, location of the first incident earlier Tuesday.

Decontamination procedures were invoked in Ste. Julie: “We are not taking any chances, so we are following official protocol,” a spokesperson for regional firefighters said.

Five people were taken to the hospital “as part of preventive measures.”