Sometime during the evening of Saturday June 22nd, an individual broke into our building via one of the other units. They eventually broke into our unit before returning to the other unit and starting a fire. The building was badly damaged by fire, smoke, and water. It has been condemned by the county at this time due to increasing structural failures. The authorities believe this individual broke into multiple businesses that evening as well.
Fortunately, this occurred when none of our staff were there, nor any staff in the other businesses. This does mean we are unable to operate in our office, but we have not stopped working. We have moved our staff to remote work and will continue to work to maintain our standard of services. We would ask for a small bit of grace during this time, as this is an unexpected transition, and some responses may be delayed during this time.
If you are one of our accounts payable clients, we are happy to report that our secure check room worked as designed. The person who broke in was not able to access the check room, and your information remained safe and secured.
If you have an upcoming onsite meeting, you will be contacted to reschedule or set up a different meeting format.
The response to this incident included Orange Rural Fire Department and nine other fire agencies, along with Orange County Fire Marshals, Orange County EMS, Orange County Sherriff’s Office, NC Office of State Fire Marshal engineers and investigators, NC State Bureau of Investigation and the NC Highway Patrol. They worked diligently in extreme heat to put out the fire and were able to quickly identify the culprit and take him into custody. We want to say thank all who assisted during this awful situation.
If there are any questions that I can answer for you, please let me know. I’ve included a picture of the front door of the building. It’s all we’ve been able to see so far.
Thank you for your support and we appreciate each and every one of you. Be safe!
