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Politics : Piffer Thread on Political Rantings and Ravings -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (10806)	4/22/2003 1:38:43 PM
From: Alan Smithee	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14610

White Powder Scare At Tacoma Mail Center April 22, 2003 By KOMO Staff & News Services TACOMA - A Tacoma mail distribution facility was evacuated early Tuesday after a preliminary test indicated a powder found among a group of envelopes might be a biotoxin. However, a federal Homeland Security official in Washington, D.C., speaking on the condition of anonymity, said subsequent, more comprehensive testing showed no signs of any biotoxins in the powder. [Edit: Mmmmmhmmmmmm. Right. And SARS doesn't cause 6-9 times more fatalities than the bug that caused the 1918 flu epidemic either...] The samples were being sent to the federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta for a final review, the official said. The initial tests registered positive for plague and botulism, said Jerry Hauer, acting assistant secretary for public health preparedness at the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C. But he cautioned that such tests used hand-held devices that are notoriously unreliable. At a news conference at the scene, Tacoma Fire Department Capt. Jolene Davis said four out of five subsequent tests by an Army National Guard unit at the scene had come back negative. Officials were waiting for a fifth test to be completed. A sample also was sent to a state laboratory, and was expected to take about three hours to process, Davis said. Depending on the results of that test, the mail center could be reopened later in the day, she said. The mail processing center is located in a mixed residential and commercial neighborhood. Postal workers, National Guard and police units milled around outside, where the street was closed to traffic. Across the street, a green 50-foot tent was set up by the National Guard hazardous materials unit from nearby Camp Murray, called in to conduct the more sophisticated tests on the substance. Davis said the material was found about 12:45 a.m. on a table where mail is processed. Four people who were close to it were decontaminated as a precaution and taken to a hospital to be checked out, she said, but no one showed any signs of being ill. Officials cautioned that the initial test performed only indicated the possibility of a biotoxin and might give a false result. "They are so misleading," Hauer said of the initial tests. "Until we get some confirmed results, we are waiting to see." Davis said 94 people were evacuated from the building. Postal Inspector Jeff Scobba said the source of the white powder was not known, but that all 12 letters in the area had been bagged up. One of those letters was addressed to the U.S. State Department and another to the police department in the Olympic Peninsula town of Sequim, but Scobba said it was not known whether those two were specifically contaminated. He said no threats had been received. Elsewhere, six workers were taken to a hospital Tuesday in Fort Myers, Fla., because they were exposed to an unknown white powder after a shipping container was unloaded from a FedEx plane at Southwest Florida International Airport. The powder was being tested, but it was not immediately known if it was toxic, Ryan said. Airport spokeswoman Laska Ryan said paramedics examined six or seven people who reported being near the powder. One complained of a burning sensation in his nose, said Paul Filla, a spokesman for the Lee County Emergency Management Service. FedEx spokeswoman Pam Roberson said the container was delivered to Postal Service workers, who would have opened it and sorted its contents. She said the treated workers all worked for the postal service. No flights were interrupted and no travelers were exposed, Ryan said. komotv.com