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HILL AIR FORCE BASE -- A suspicious powdery substance that triggered the evacuation of a warehouse on Hill Air Force base Tuesday morning turned out to be no more than office dust.
An employee working at a warehouse received a piece of mail from somewhere on base.
"In the process of trying to open that mail today, there was a poof of white powder of what they perceived was white powder," said Col. Patrick Higby, 75th Air Base Wing and installation commander. "We just evacuated as a precaution, we didn't know what we're dealing with."
The employee put down the mail and called 911. The building was evacuated and two potentially exposed employees remained on base until the substance could be identified.
"They're doing the right things by being very cautious," Higby said. "When they see something that doesn't look right they're calling the proper authorities, and we respond and try to find out what's going on."
Higby says the base is the middle of an operational readiness exercise, so employees are on high alert. The exercise is to test the base's ability to deploy quickly.
The exercise will take place all this week. In the coming days, those on and near the base can expect to hear very loud noises.
"We are going into 24/7 operations," Higby said. "There will be lots jet noise, lots of giant voice announcements. There might be some ground burst simulators that go off, and a lot of that can be heard off the installation."
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