Just got back in, don't know details, but heard a fragment on Fox, so it must be true.

-- Anonymous, October 26, 2001

Answers

Oct 26, 2001

Anthrax Found at Supreme Court's Offsite Mail Processing Warehouse; No Evidence of Microbe at Court Building

By Anne Gearan Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Anthrax was discovered Friday on a filter removed from a warehouse that screens mail headed for the Supreme Court, a spokeswoman said.

The court building was closed to tourists at midday Friday, and the court's ventilation system was shut off, in case any material found its way to the building. Other precautions also were taken, but court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg did not detail them.

"We have no evidence of any contamination in the Supreme Court building," itself, a statement from the court said.

The filter was removed from the offsite warehouse Monday, and the test came back positive for anthrax Friday. Arberg would not say where the offsite screening facility is located.

No court employees show signs of anthrax exposure, the statement said. Nonetheless, some may be treated as a precaution. The court building will be "tested thoroughly and if any contamination is detected, the building will be decontaminated," the statement said.

Inspectors from the Centers for Disease Control tested the main court building Sunday for evidence of anthrax and none was found, Arberg said.

The court was in temporary recess this week, but returns for arguments and other business Monday. If the building is still shut down then, the court will borrow a local District of Columbia court building.

AP-ES-10-26-01 1342EDT

This story can be found at : http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAZII3AATC.html

-- Anonymous, October 26, 2001

Sure are a lot of remote mailing processing facilities. Guess my company doesn't rate!

-- Anonymous, October 26, 2001

Our main facility that I posted about in the 'we're back to greenspun' thread, has several remote buildings. I am in the main building, then there is the Doral Station across the parking lot. A couple blocks north is the Annex [handles major bulk mail drops to break down for us], the Airport Facility a couple blocks east inside the airport [AMC, handles mail from planes, sorts some and distributes to us], and ISC, a mile west [International Service Center] which handles mail leaving the country, and entering to some extent].

The government facilities that you are hearing about are for those specific buildings, apparently, while ours are for the area at large. Considering how much mail they get, and how many recipients there are, it would be a pain for us to sort down to the level that we do for carriers. After all, the carrier would only be delivering to the building, not to the individual offices. It is easier to deliver their mail in bulk form and have it sorted down there instead of in a main postal facility.

Did you see that New York's main facility has 5000 workers? They are also on multiple floors in that facility. That is something that we haven't had to deal with down here since we had room to expand on one floor. Of course the reason our complex is so spread out is that the neighboring sites where taken by other companies. for example, UPS is right next to our main facility, and we have some large shipping companies behind us next to our Doral Station facility.

Still nothing on local news about the alleged false alarms we had last night.

-- Anonymous, October 26, 2001

BF, the local news here has just about quit reporting on anthrax scares because there have been so many false alarms. I don't know that they have a fixed policy, but I'd be willing to bet they've decided not to report on them any more, not unless it turns out there's a positive test result.

-- Anonymous, October 26, 2001