T-L Photo/GAGE VOTA Senior Suites at St. Clair Commons pumps water released by a suppression system malfunction on the second and third floors that caused extensive damage to the building.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — An emergency at Senior Suites at St. Clair Commons on Wednesday evening led to all of its residents being escorted off the premises.

Cumberland Trail Fire District Chief Tim Hall said the district was called for a general alarm at the facility. Once they arrived, responders realized there was a malfunction with the building’s fire suppression system that caused extreme water damage to the second and third floors of one of the wings of the building.

“There was extensive damage to the second and third floor of the facility and, unfortunately, that side of the building had all of the utilities that come into all of the building,” Hall said. “It caused water damage to the main power source.”

He added that St. Clairsville Light and Power Department was called to the scene to assess the damage to the power source. Once that crew arrived on scene, Hall said a decision was made to turn off the power to the structure.

After the decision was made to cut the power, Hall said, it became obvious to everyone on the scene that it was no longer plausible for the residents of Senior Suites to be on the property. A decision was made to evacuate all residents, and Hall called Senior Services Executive Director Lisa Kazmirski to inform her of the situation. Kazmirski and her staff arrived with several handicap accessible vans and a 14-passenger van to safely relocate all of the residents. Hall added that Neffs Volunteer Fire Department also brought a handicap accessible van to provide additional help.

“Due to the local facilities in the area being at capacity, the next available facility was out of the area,” Hall said. “We contacted the city of St. Clairsville Recreation Director Eric Gay and Mayor (Kathryn) Thalman, and they graciously opened the Kevin Barr Event Center as a place to temporarily shelter those remaining residents until transportation could be arranged for them to get the definitive care that they needed.”

Thalman took to social media to praise everyone involved for their quick action in accommodating Senior Suites residents while they waited for transportation to take them to a temporary care facility.

“Much thanks to our awesome rec team, Eric Gay and Eric Timko, Officer Andy Gazdik, and our outstanding fire department for responding to an emergency at the Senior Suites building. They had to quickly evacuate all residents,” she posted. “Chief Tim Hall called Eric Gay, asking if they could bring residents to the Kevin Barr Event Center until alternative placements could be secured. We spent 2 hours with these lovely citizens, eating pizza and then helping them into the buses who came to take them to other placements.

“This all went smoothly thanks to all the wonderful city employees who helped!”

Kazmirski said the reason for temporarily placing residents in the Kevin Barr Event Center was due to the fact that Senior Suites was deemed unsafe for any of the residents to occupy.

She added that when she was made aware of the incident by Hall, her staff and she quickly jumped into action to make sure the residents were safely sheltered.

“Cumberland Trail reached out to us and said they needed help relocating some of the seniors of our county and since that’s what we’re all about anyway we jumped in the best that we could to provide transportation services to get the residents from Senior Suites to other facilities as safely and quickly as possible,” Kazmirski said.