Police say a suspicious package that led to the evacuation of the county government headquarters in Ellicott City on the morning of Monday, Aug. 29, was not hazardous.

"Somebody in the mail room handled a package they thought was suspicious because they felt through the envelope something they couldn't recognize," said Sherry Llewellyn, spokeswoman for the Howard County Police Department. "It's our standing operating procedure to evacuate people just in case. We use an abundance of caution."

The call from the George Howard Building, 3430 Courthouse Drive, came into police at about 10:20 a.m. Fire marshals entered the building and scanned the package. A preliminary evaluation showed that it was "not a safety concern," Llewellyn said, and a secondary evaluation reached the same conclusion.

Authorities were wrapping up at the scene at about 11:30 a.m.