Cleveland building evacuated due to safety concerns

CLEVELAND - Cuyahoga County is evacuating one of its downtown Cleveland buildings due to safety concerns after one of the walls appears to be buckling.

County Executive Ed FitzGerald said employees in the Sterling Building at 1255 Euclid Ave. noticed the wall bowing out at about 11 a.m. Tuesday and pulled the fire alarm to get everyone out of the building as a precaution.

The building hosts the Cuyahoga Emergency Communications System and 911 service. FitzGerald said the calls were transferred seamlessly to a backup location -- and no service was disrupted.

It's not clear yet what caused the damage to the building, but emergency crews said it could be because of the severe weather from Hurricane Sandy.

A county official told NewsChannel5's Ron Regan that the damage is not structural -- it's just the facade on the outside of the building.

A photo taken by reporter Tracy Carloss shows one section of the exterior wall nearly buckling.

Earlier, Cleveland police said the building experienced structural failure.

Here is information from the county about CECOMS:

"The Cuyahoga Emergency Communications System (CECOMS) is a 24 hr, 7 day a week, emergency communications system for Cuyahoga County. The CECOMS is responsible for maintaining the status of hospitals in Cuyahoga County relative to their capability to receive patients transported by EMS. The purpose of this web-based system is to provide this information to EMS and hospitals for quick reference and eliminates calling CECOMS on the telephone to obtain the information."