SUNBURY — After only 8 days on the job, Northumberland County Prison Warden Bruce Kovach faced one of the toughest days in his career as the prison was destroyed by fire on Wednesday.
Kovach described how they discovered there was a fire, “One of the officers actually recognized that there was a problem and noticed smoke and called for assistance. They noticed smoke coming into the cell house area. They removed the inmates from the area to the initial safe haven. Shortly after that, the smoke was making its way into the safe haven area and we evacuated from there. The Methodist Church then opened their doors to us.”
Kovach says the transfer of inmates was a smooth one, “We moved them across the street with little to no problems whatsoever. I credit my staff 100 percent for moving those folks from the prison across the street, maintaining order, reassuring inmates that they were going to be looked after and assuring the inmates that their families would be notified.”
He said the emergency response was amazing, “We were still evacuating inmates to safe havens and there was a fire truck in front of our facility. It just seemed like a few minutes and everybody is to be commended.”
Kovach talked about the future, “We are going to do a lot of research because we have to keep the county taxpayer in mind. We are going to serve the community as effectively and efficiently as we can. We are going to be reaching out to our contacts and see how we can do that.”
Kovach says they will be working hard in the days and weeks ahead to sort it out and make important decisions, but they will keep the public updated during the process. (Ali Stevens/Sara Bartlett)