It's a friend of a friend story until an establish news source picks it up.
Wed, May. 15, 2002
Suspicious white powder triggers anthrax response at Presidio
Monterey Herald
By KEVIN HOWE
An envelope leaking a fine white powder triggered the evacuation of an administrative building at the Presidio of Monterey this afternoon. The sinister discovery triggered the county's emergency response plan for possible anthrax contamination in the mail, and the Seaside Fire Department's hazardous materials team responded.
Army spokeswoman Kay Rodrigues said the sealed envelope was found by a soldier at Taylor Hall, administration building for the Army's 229th Training Battalion, about 1 p.m. The envelope came from an unknown sender, and was leaking powder from a small opening, she said, adding that the envelope was placed, unopened, into another container as a precautionary measure, and the building was evacuated.
Seaside fire Capt. Roger Brown said his four-man team secured the envelope, but was unable to identify the substance inside.
Fire engines from the city of Monterey and Fort Ord Military Community also responded. No one was sent to Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula for treatment, according to hospital spokeswoman Lauren Elsensohn.
"We don't have any patients, and we aren't expecting any," she said. "Our people are in contact with the emergency medical services crew there."
Emergency workers, Elsensohn added, were following protocols established by the county Office of Emergency Services for dealing with suspicious letters and packages. "We won't get anyone unless they have symptoms."
Anthrax is an acute infectious disease carried by spore-forming bacteria. It usually occurs in farm animals but can be contracted by humans through tainted meat or, more rarely, inhalation of the spores. When inhaled, it first causes cold-like symptoms and is almost always fatal within a week unless treated immediately by antibiotics.
Health officials, Elsensohn said, like to keep suspicious substances on site rather than carrying them through the community.
The envelope was taken to a laboratory for examination, said John Jennings, chief of the hazardous materials and solid waste branch of the county's Environmental Health office. An initial test will take 24 hours, he said to show results, if the material proves not to be hazardous. Otherwise, further testing could take another 48 hours to determine what it is. Military investigators and the FBI have been contacted, Jennings said.
The incident recalled the flurry of similar alarms that brought hazardous response teams out on scores of incidents in October and November, shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the New York World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and subsequent appearances of anthrax-tainted letters, with bacterial spores contained in powder, in post offices on the East Coast.
Among them was an alarm at Monterey Peninsula College in mid-October that emptied the campus of its 2,500 students when piles of white powder were discovered around the campus, and two similar incidents at Cannery Row. The substances proved to be harmless. Anthrax jitters also generated public demands for vaccinations and antibiotics, which medical authorities advised against.
His hazardous materials team rolled on about 60 responses during those two months, Brown said, and the alarms have tapered off to about a half-dozen since January. "This is the first in a while."
It don't even matter who, they'll just start machine gunning people randomly.
If this is true there i9s only one solution: CALL IN JANET RENO AND BURN IT, BURN IT TO THE GROUND!
"Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms? Who's bringing the chips and salsa?"