WAWARSING – Now that the crisis has ended, tensions have cooled, and the dust has settled, the picture of what exactly happened at Wawarsing Town Hall last week has become much clearer.

On Tuesday at about 11:30 a.m., reports circulated throughout downtown Ellenville that white powder had been found in an envelope that was sent to town court. Rescue workers descended on the scene, closing off Canal Street with caution tape and quarantining the six Town Hall employees and one state trooper in the second floor of the building. It was discovered later that there was no actual white powder as reports on the scene had suggested — and that this newspaper had reported online. Senior Investigator for the State Police Stan O'Dell said that trace amounts of baby formula and cake mix had been found during investigation, and by Friday last week, the envelope had come back from testing in Albany, confirming that there were no harmful substances within. O'Dell was quoted last week as saying, "There's nothing. No powder came out of it, no material, no substance, no nothing."

However, the employees who went through the ordeal want to set the record straight, providing more details as to what they experienced on that harrowing day.

"Something sprayed up in my face," said Court Clerk Michelle Mainolfi, the employee who'd opened the letter. "I was stunned, I just opened an envelope and something puffed in my face." Mainolfi said that she experienced a chemical smell, and that the rest of the employees on the second floor smelled something as well. When she informed a coworker about the experience, she said something had "puffed" up from the envelope — which was then interpreted as powder. The coworker called the state police, and a trooper arrived on the scene. When he came up the stairs, he also started to experience the same symptoms as the employees.

"His eyes started tearing, he got a sore throat, and he called it in. He said, 'my throat is sore, my eyes are irritated,' " said Mainolfi.

That was when the rest of the building was evacuated and the seven people upstairs were quarantined for the rest of the day. Mainolfi and the other employees tried to stay calm as the scene unfolded outside. Rescue workers in hazmat suits came into the office, and one of them cut the shirt off of Mainolfi's back as part of the decontamination process. From there, they were all brought into the decontamination showers downstairs, and then taken to Ellenville Regional Hospital for observation. They were released at about 5 p.m., and Town Hall was reopened after investigators found nothing harmful. However, when Investigator O'Dell's words — that it was "nothing" — were reported, Mainolfi and the other employees felt as though their experiences were being dismissed and discounted.

"I tasted something, without a doubt. Later that day I kept complaining that my cheeks were burning and in the hospital I kept saying my cheeks were burning. It felt like something had irritated my skin," said Mainolfi. "You don't want to go through that and hear that it's nothing. I think it was 'nothing harmful' — 'nothing' and 'nothing harmful' are two different things."

Another employee, who wished to remain anonymous, agreed, saying, "That was a little upsetting — [the Journal headline] 'false rumors,' — because I didn't think they were false rumors. It was a situation that did happen.

"There was something. We don't know what it was. We smelled it, and it irritated your eyes…even the trooper's, so there was something. We wouldn't have made that up, in today's world," said the employee.

But now that the ordeal is over, all of the employees of Town Hall are grateful to the job done by the rescue workers who responded that day, helping them through a dramatic experience that few of us will ever have to go through.

"If it had been something, they did very well getting us washed off, and getting it off, because it could've been worse," said one employee.

"Everyone was kind, professional," said Mainolfi. She also credited the trooper with helping to keep everyone calm throughout the ordeal.

"I didn't have anthrax, and I walked out on my own two feet; I was fine," she said, relieved.

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