The brief: Poison in the mail
Here are four recent news items:
White powder mailed to WadeHamptonBuilding in Midlands, South Carolina: Last Tuesday morning the normal hustle and bustle around the Wade Hampton building came to a standstill. SLED agents, the FBI, HAZMAT teams, and even Army officials that deal with weapons of mass destruction were on the scene. This after officials say a worker inside the building opened a letter and found a suspicious white substance. “The priority was to find out what the substance was,” said Dept. of Safety Spokesman Sid Gaulden. “Is it safe to move it? What to do with it? And once that’s done then the investigation will move into high gear.”
“I was like ‘Oh my God’ I was a little nervous wondering what it was,” said downtown worker Tijuana Rainey.
Workers like Rainey had to stay back while authorities locked down the area. “You feel nervous,” said Rainey. “You just want to make sure someone is aware of what’s going on.”
At one point on one was allowed inside the Wade Hampton building and no one was allowed out. “They immediately isolated that floor of the building,” said Columbia Deputy Fire Chief Aubrey Jenkins. Jenkins says the building was shut down in order to protect other workers from possible danger. Late Tuesday afternoon, emergency officials gave the all clear after determining the powder wasn’t a threat. “It’s good to know that we do have protection, that someone is watching out for us,” said Rainey.
Investigators now have to figure out why someone sent the mysterious letter in the first place. This isn’t the first time a scare like this has happened. Last December Governor Mark Sanford was among nine US Governors to receive a fake anthrax letter.
Tuesday’s incident remains under investigation.
Navy calls Kings Bay, Georgia, anthrax threat hoax: About 200 people were contained for nearly three hours last Monday morning while local, state, and federal authorities investigating a threat that part of NavalSubmarineBaseKingsBay was contaminated with anthrax. With no sign of anthrax spores found and the threat determined to be a hoax, the Navy Criminal Investigative Service and the FBI launched a criminal investigation. Public Affairs Officer Ed Buczek said early Monday that emergency response teams responded “as if it were real.”
The note was found about 7:15 a.m. at a Subway restaurant near the waterfront saying there was anthrax in or near the restaurant. A response team was prepared to decontaminate the area and the people exposed if tests had shown
