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Suspicious Powders Discovered at Two Mail Facilities Today
Aired April 22, 2003 - 15:09 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: A toxin scare today for postal workers in two states and they turned out to be false alarms. Envelopes containing a suspicious brown powder prompted an evacuation at a mail facility in Tacoma, Washington and a container leaking white powder raised concerns at an airport cargo facility in Fort Meyers, Florida. But authorities now say appears neither substance is toxic.
Joining me now with details, CNN's Jeanne Meserve out of Washington who covers homeland security issues for us. Hello, Jeanne.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Miles. Officials of the Department of Homeland Security here in Washington say that laboratory tests have shown the substance found in Tacoma was not a biotoxin. There some is additional testing being done to determine what it is.
This sort of episode is played out all, though not so publicly all time all across the country because some hand-held detection equipment is prone to giving false-positive readings. This episode was typical in some ways, atypical in some others.
Two employees at the Tacoma postal facility noticed an unidentified They noticed an unidentified powdery substance near two letters. One addressed to the local police, another to the U.S. State Department. Both had been put aside for insufficient postage.
These employees notified their supervisors who in turn called the Tacoma Fire Department. Its hazardous material team did initial testing which came back positive for the toxins that are the source of botulism and plague.
Homeland Security officials say the Washington State National Guard was conducting an exercise at a hospital in the vicinity. They have more sophisticated testing capabilities and four of the five tests they did came back negative. A fifth is still pending. And some material was sent to the state laboratory for additional testing.
Now interestingly, the Postal Service had announced only a few weeks ago that Tacoma was one of 14 cities where new detection equipment was slated to be tested this coming June. The system has already been tried out at a facility in Baltimore, and is described as accurate, reliable and very, very sensitive. It also is described as being almost free of false positives. That's important because it means there could be fewer events like today's, which are disruptive and expensive. But the Postal Service is doing more field testing of these devices to see how they perform in various climates and agricultural regions where there's more naturally occurring anthrax.
You may remember, Miles, that after the anthrax attacks, the Postal Service talked about eradiating (ph) mail. They do that here in Washington to mail destined for some government buildings, but they have not chosen to deploy the equipment widely because complaints of what it did to some commonly mailed items like medicines and computer disks, which is essentially melt it.
As for the additional testing being done on the material found in Tacoma, officials want to know if further investigation is needed and perhaps somewhere down the line a prosecution. And as for that material in Fort Meyers found at a Federal Express facility, that, too, came back negative for biotoxins -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: So just briefly, Jeanne, it was not an innocent delivery of brown powder. There was something malicious there to give the idea that this was something toxic?
MESERVE: They don't know. They simply don't know what the situation is. That's what they'll be investigating. They want to know what the substance is first. And then I suspect there will be some level of investigation. Where it leads we don't know. What the conclusions will be, we certainly don't know.
O'BRIEN: CNN's Jeanne Meserve in Washington, thank you very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Today>
Aired April 22, 2003 - 15:09 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: A toxin scare today for postal workers in two states and they turned out to be false alarms. Envelopes containing a suspicious brown powder prompted an evacuation at a mail facility in Tacoma, Washington and a container leaking white powder raised concerns at an airport cargo facility in Fort Meyers, Florida. But authorities now say appears neither substance is toxic.
Joining me now with details, CNN's Jeanne Meserve out of Washington who covers homeland security issues for us. Hello, Jeanne.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Miles. Officials of the Department of Homeland Security here in Washington say that laboratory tests have shown the substance found in Tacoma was not a biotoxin. There some is additional testing being done to determine what it is.
This sort of episode is played out all, though not so publicly all time all across the country because some hand-held detection equipment is prone to giving false-positive readings. This episode was typical in some ways, atypical in some others.
Two employees at the Tacoma postal facility noticed an unidentified They noticed an unidentified powdery substance near two letters. One addressed to the local police, another to the U.S. State Department. Both had been put aside for insufficient postage.
These employees notified their supervisors who in turn called the Tacoma Fire Department. Its hazardous material team did initial testing which came back positive for the toxins that are the source of botulism and plague.
Homeland Security officials say the Washington State National Guard was conducting an exercise at a hospital in the vicinity. They have more sophisticated testing capabilities and four of the five tests they did came back negative. A fifth is still pending. And some material was sent to the state laboratory for additional testing.
Now interestingly, the Postal Service had announced only a few weeks ago that Tacoma was one of 14 cities where new detection equipment was slated to be tested this coming June. The system has already been tried out at a facility in Baltimore, and is described as accurate, reliable and very, very sensitive. It also is described as being almost free of false positives. That's important because it means there could be fewer events like today's, which are disruptive and expensive. But the Postal Service is doing more field testing of these devices to see how they perform in various climates and agricultural regions where there's more naturally occurring anthrax.
You may remember, Miles, that after the anthrax attacks, the Postal Service talked about eradiating (ph) mail. They do that here in Washington to mail destined for some government buildings, but they have not chosen to deploy the equipment widely because complaints of what it did to some commonly mailed items like medicines and computer disks, which is essentially melt it.
As for the additional testing being done on the material found in Tacoma, officials want to know if further investigation is needed and perhaps somewhere down the line a prosecution. And as for that material in Fort Meyers found at a Federal Express facility, that, too, came back negative for biotoxins -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: So just briefly, Jeanne, it was not an innocent delivery of brown powder. There was something malicious there to give the idea that this was something toxic?
MESERVE: They don't know. They simply don't know what the situation is. That's what they'll be investigating. They want to know what the substance is first. And then I suspect there will be some level of investigation. Where it leads we don't know. What the conclusions will be, we certainly don't know.
O'BRIEN: CNN's Jeanne Meserve in Washington, thank you very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Today>
