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American Morning

Anthrax Investigation: Another Part of Hart Office Building Contaminated

Aired October 25, 2001 - 09:51   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: October 15, 10:15 a.m. Eastern time, Washington, the Senate Hart Office building -- it was their that an aide to Sen. Tom Daschle opened a letter laced with anthrax spores, and that triggered this nationwide investigation.

CNN's Kate Snow has been following this rapidly changing story. She brings us an anthrax time line.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATE SNOW, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Friday, October 12, a letter addressed to Senator Tom Daschle arrives at his office in the Senate Hart Building. No one opens it yet. The postmark is Trenton, New Jersey. That means the letter had already passed through a Trenton processing facility, the main Washington, D.C. facility called Brentwood and the delivery center for congressional mail.

Monday, October 15, a call from the Hart Building.

SEN. TOM DASCHLE (D-SD), MAJORITY LEADER: At about 10:15 this morning, a member of my staff opened an envelope and it become clear from the very beginning that the envelope contained a suspicious substance.

SNOW: Capitol Police respond without protective gear. Six of them later test positive for anthrax exposure.

LT. DAN NICHOLS, U.S. CAPITOL POLICE: There are going to be lessons learned from this. The problem is not with the officers. I'm proud with what they did. They put themselves at risk to protect the congressional community.

SNOW: Police quarantined Daschle's offices on the fifth and sixth floors, keeping staff inside, giving them antibiotics.

DASCHLE: We thought the more we could contain the area, and stop the spread of the contamination, that it was in our interest to try to do so.

SNOW (on camera): But it would be at least a half an hour before the air conditioning in that corner of the building is shutdown, 24 hours before that corner of the building is sealed and nearly three days before the entire building was closed for environmental testing.

SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY (R), IOWA: Everybody, including myself, that was in the Hart Building were in there three days -- Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday -- when there was known contamination.

SNOW: As those days pass on Capitol Hill, mail continues to flow through Washington's Brentwood facility. In hindsight, the mistake is clear.

REP. DAVE WELDON (R), FLORIDA: They should have walked the whole chain of mail handling backwards and started doing testing, isolation, treatment, screening, at every location where that piece of mail might have possibly been.

SNOW: Thursday, October 18, the first case of skin anthrax is announced in a postal worker from Trenton, New Jersey where the letter to Senator Daschle originated. But in Washington, on the same day, the postmaster general says the Centers for Disease Control has advised them the letter to Senator Daschle poses little risk to workers at the Brentwood mail room.

JOHN POTTER, POSTMASTER GENERAL: That letter was extremely well sealed and there is only a minute chance that anthrax spores escaped from it into this facility.

SNOW: By Friday, October 19, nearly 4,000 people have been tested for anthrax exposure on Capitol Hill. At least 120 of them are on the full 60-day regimen of Cipro. That day most workers at the Trenton facility begin receiving Cipro too.

But while environmental testing is under way at Washington's Brentwood center, the workers are not tested or given medication. Two days later, it's confirmed, a case of inhalation anthrax at Brentwood. Only then, are 2000 coworkers given antibiotics, nearly a week after members of Daschle's staff were treated at the first sign of exposure and three days after the first postal worker in Trenton was diagnosed.

Monday, October 22, two Brentwood workers are dead from anthrax.

MELVIN THWEATT, POSTAL WORKER: Well, our lives are important too, you know. We -- you would think they would have closed this down at the same time, at least, but they didn't.

SNOW: It's unclear whether the letter to Senator Daschle was the source of contamination at the Brentwood facility. But it's clear there are painful lessons.

DEL. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON (D), D.C. DELEGATE: If they had gone down there perhaps and looked at how mail is processed, where it is mechanically processed very rapidly with envelopes pressed very rapidly through, somebody might have said, you know, this could get in the air, inhalation anthrax. Perhaps they would have had a different take on it.

SNOW: Questions are being raised, but as many have said, this is all new. HAMM: Right now, you're telling the mail must go through rain, sleet, hail or snow. They don't say nothing about anthrax. OK, it was nothing about anthrax.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: It is certainly a frightening situation for people here who work on Capitol Hill as well. Dr. John Eisold, just a short time ago, Paula, said that he's confident but vigilant that things are under control, that they have identified all of the contaminated areas here on Capitol Hill and that they are, if anything, overtreating the population here. He said there are 400 people now who are on a full 60-day regimen of Cipro.

Paula, back to you.

ZAHN: Kate, what can you tell us about the journalist we believe to have been exposed to anthrax by standing in that freight elevator that tested positive for anthrax?

SNOW: We don't know, Paula, where that journalist was. All we know is that journalist was somewhere in the Hart Building, which is a very big building. We don't know exactly where she was.

But Dr. Eisold commented on her and said she happened to go to a hospital out in Maryland, so it alerted the authorities there, and we've learned about it. He said she just has symptoms at this point, and he said he suspects it will turn out to be nothing or just be the flu and not be anything related to anthrax.

He also noted that there are people on Capitol Hill who he's been watching, people who maybe have flu-like symptoms, but they could just have the regular-old flu. He said at this point, they really don't believe that anyone else here is at any great risk -- Paula.

ZAHN: Now that they found this other location, this freight elevator that showed signs of anthrax spores, have they actually changed the way they're testing the place?

SNOW: Not at this point, but what they've said is that they are going to go back now and find out who else might have used that freight elevator. They know postal workers use the elevator, and they've already been treated preventively because they found contamination at several of the postal facilities on Capitol Hill.

Beyond that, they not asking anybody else to get tested, not asking anybody else to take antibiotics. They are going to try to trace it back and make sure they have covered bases and found anyone who might have been in that area in front of the elevator -- Paula.

ZAHN: Kate, thanks so much.

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