CORRECTION: Due to a reporter error, senior individual studies major Evan Margolis’ name was spelled wrong. This article has since been corrected to reflect this change.
Knox Towers were evacuated a little after 10:30 p.m. Sunday when students reported smoke on the fifth floor. Officials did not find a fire in the building, Bill Corrigan of the College Park Fire Department said at the scene.
Students who evacuated said the fifth floor hallway was filled with smoke, and the College Park and Branchville Fire Departments were there within minutes. Five fire trucks, an ambulance and several police cars surrounded the building while hundreds of residents waited in the rain to go back inside.
Fifth-floor resident Evan Margolis said officers told him they suspected the incident was marijuana-related.
Margolis, a senior individual studies major, called the University Police as soon as he saw the smoke, he said.
“We decided that we’d rather be safe than sorry,” Margolis said.
The firefighters who responded rushed into the building and raised their ladders up to the fifth floor.
“This is all just a precaution,” Branchville firefighter Ronnie Leizear said at the scene.
Residents were let back into the building less than 10 minutes after alarms started going off, Corrigan said.
Margolis said residents were nervous when the alarms began to sound.
“There was a little bit of confusion,” he said, adding that police knocked on all fifth floor doors after residents were let back inside.
The College Park Fire Department and the University Police could not be reached for further comment Sunday night.
egan@umdbk.com; tweyant@umdbk.com
