A major search is under way in the town of Willsboro for two murderers who escaped from a New York prison, according to US media.
A senior official from Willsboro said officers started scouring farms and fields around the town after a member of the public reported they saw two men walking down the street, acting suspiciously.
The small town of 2,000 residents is some 30 miles south of the Upstate New York Prison where David Sweat, 34 and Richard Matt, 48, used power tools to cut their way out sometime on Friday night.
Town Supervisor Shaun Gillilland told ABC News: "A vigilant citizen who saw something he or she thought was suspicious."
Mr Tillilland said there were heavy rain storms overnight and two men were seen walking along the side of the road. When they were approached the men took off - prompting the police to "react immediately".
It comes as New York State Police confirmed a female prison worker was being questioned as a possible accomplice, while Governor Andrew Cuomo said investigators were focusing on civilian employees at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora - rather than guards.
Earlier, he told CNN: "We're looking at the civilian employees now and the private contractors to see if possibly a civil employee or contractor was assisting the escape because they wouldn't have equipment on their own, that's for sure.
"I'd be shocked if a correction guard was involved in this, but they definitely had help.
"Otherwise, they couldn't have done this on their own."
The woman is reported to have worked with Sweat and Matt tailoring clothing at the prison.
The men sliced through a steel wall, crawled down a catwalk, broke through a brick wall, cut their way into and out of a steam pipe and then sliced through a chain and lock on a manhole cover while making their escape.
They had stuffed their beds with clothes to fool guards and left behind a taunting note which read: "Have a nice day."
Matt, who has a tattoo which says Mexico Forever, was serving 25 years to life for kidnapping and dismembering his former boss in 1997.
Sweat was serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the murder of a sheriff's deputy in 2002.
