2014 Midwest FurFest Gas Attack

Within hours, 19 people were in local hospitals, several thousand more had been evacuated into the night, and police were calling it an intentional act under criminal investigation.^[1][2]

A Weekend of Escapism in Suburban Chicago

The Noxious Odor on the Ninth Floor

The first sign that something was wrong came around 12:40 a.m. Rosemont police and firefighter/paramedics were dispatched to the Hyatt for reports of a strong, chlorine‑like odor on the ninth floor.^[1][2][4] A statement from the Rosemont Public Safety Department later described first responders being called to investigate “a noxious odor that was spreading across the ninth floor of the hotel.”^[1][2]

As units rolled toward the hotel, 9‑1‑1 dispatchers relayed that people in room 963 had reported the strong chlorine smell and said at least four people had been forced out onto their balcony.^[4] The implication was clear: whatever was in the air wasn’t just unpleasant—it was bad enough to drive people from their room.

Firefighters Find the Jar

Evacuated in Costume

By 1:10 a.m., the situation had outgrown a single floor. Per Rosemont Fire Department procedures, the decision was made to clear the building.^[2] The entire Hyatt was evacuated across Bryn Mawr Avenue, and the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center—already humming with weekend events—was opened to provide warmth and shelter.^[1][2]

Several thousand people streamed out of the hotel.^[1] Among them were FurFest attendees, some still dressed in elaborate animal costumes that looked surreal against the backdrop of emergency lights and fire engines.^[1][4]

Outside near the hotel entrance, Zell watched as the evacuation unfolded. He said many people at first assumed it was just another pulled fire alarm—an occasional nuisance at large conventions—until it became clear “it was serious this time.”^[1][2]

Iowa residents Morgan Smejkal and Chris Delaney didn’t even hear alarms in their part of the building.^[1][2] They learned they needed to get out through hotel staff and texts from friends.^[1][2] As they made their way outside, they caught the smell for themselves. Both later said they smelled chlorine as they walked out of the building; Delaney summed it up as “like when you walk into a pool. It was pungent.”^[1][2]

Standing outside the hotel in a red panda suit, Smejkal described the experience in a single word: “shocking.”^[1][2]

Triage in the Cold

Decontamination and the Long Wait to Go Back In

While medics worked outside, hazardous materials teams went to work on the ninth floor. Technicians decontaminated the stairwell area and, after conducting tests, concluded the air inside the hotel was safe again within about two hours.^[1][2]

The specialized HazMat “box” alarm, which had drawn in regional resources, was struck out around 3:00 a.m.^[4] A witness reported hearing an “All Clear” announced for guests to return inside at about 4:21 a.m.,^[4] and FurFest organizers said people were allowed back into the building around 4:20 a.m.^[1][2]

Even as people trickled back into ballrooms and lower convention areas, the night stayed unsettled. At one point, according to reports, people who had returned to the dance floor and convention space were evacuated from that area again.^[4]

Chlorine—Or Something Very Much Like It

From the beginning, the working assumption for first responders was chlorine. Technicians on the ninth floor recorded elevated chlorine readings at the scene, with numbers high enough to overload their meter inside the stairwell and remain measurable in adjacent open air.^[4] Police and fire officials described the powder in the jar as being consistent with powdered chlorine and said it appeared to be the source of the chlorine gas detected on the floor.^[1][2]

Police Call It an Intentional Act

Once the immediate danger was under control, attention shifted to how the jar had gotten there in the first place. Rosemont police focused on the way the substance had been placed and released in the stairwell. In a statement, the department said the manner in which the substance—consistent with powdered chlorine—was released “suggests an intentional act.”^[1][2]

Police said they were investigating the incident as a criminal matter.^[1][2] Public statements emphasized that this was not being treated as an accident. Someone had brought a jar of a chlorine‑like powder into a crowded hotel and left it in a place where it could contaminate a guest floor.

In the immediate aftermath, though, those statements stopped short of naming any suspect or explaining a possible motive. The most pressing questions—who carried the jar into the Hyatt, and why they chose a hotel filled with conventiongoers—remained unanswered in those early hours.

FurFest Refuses to Fold

By late Sunday morning, as hazmat tape came down and the hotel tried to return to normal, Midwest FurFest’s organizers made their own decision. In a statement, they announced that the convention would continue despite what had happened overnight.^[1][2]

They also made clear that there would be no refunds. Organizers said that neither they nor the hotel would offer refunds because the incident was “an unforeseen criminal act.”^[1][2]

An Unanswered Threat

The 2014 Midwest FurFest gas incident remains one of the stranger intersections of subculture and crime in recent memory: a jar of chlorine‑like powder left in a hotel stairwell during a fan convention, 19 people sent to hospitals, several thousand forced into an emergency evacuation, and a police department publicly calling it an intentional, criminal act.^[1][2]

In the days immediately after, officials focused on reassurance—on the fact that the building had been decontaminated and declared safe, on the return of guests to their rooms, on the continuation of the convention.^[1][2] But one detail lingered in the background of every statement: somewhere behind the numbers and technical readings was a person who had chosen that stairwell, that night, and that crowd.

At least in the early public record, the chlorine itself—and the criminal intent that police said it pointed to—remained the only things that were definitively identified.^[1][2][4]