HANOVER — Police forces from towns around the Upper Valley and New Hampshire State Police swarmed to Hypertherm in Hanover in response to an active shooter alarm sounding late Thursday afternoon, leading police to secure the area and evacuate about 100 employees from a plant building on Great Hollow Road before determining it was a false alarm.
The alarm came in at 4:36 p.m., and police gave the all-clear signal at 5:53 p.m., according to Hanover Police Chief Charlie Dennis.
“We sent contact teams inside, were able to clear the building, got the existing employees that were there — about a hundred of them — out of the building, and all have been accounted for,” Dennis said at the scene on Thursday. “Basically, it looks like it was a false alarm.”
Police departments from Hanover, Lebanon, Enfield, Plainfield, Canaan and Lyme, in addition to New Hampshire state troopers, all responded, Dennis said, involving “more than a dozen” units.
“It appears someone activated the Alertus button and then ran off,” Hypertherm spokesperson Michelle Avila said via email.
“There was never an active shooter,” she said, adding that the company is investigating the situation.
Hypertherm’s Great Hollow Road plant experienced another false active shooter alarm in 2020, resulting in a similar wide response from area police departments. In that incident, the alarm was accidentally set off during a test of the system.