Fire alarm evacuates Holiday Inn Express

An alarm indicating an active fire in Room 215 of the Holiday Inn Express & Suites emptied Gonzales' newest hotel at about 5:40 p.m. Monday, March 18.

Gonzales Fire Department, Gonzales Police Department, Gonzales County EMS/Rescue and Gonzales County Sheriff's Office personnel responded to the scene at U.S. Highway 183 and Middlebuster Road as guests poured out of the hotel and waited anxiously in the parking lot as first responders hurried into the building.

By 6 p.m., Fire Chief Keith Schmidt and firefighters had conducted a systematic and tedious search of the structure, determining that it was a false alarm and that the emergency panel that sounds the alarm had malfunctioned.

No one was injured in the evacuation and subsequent search for a fire.