Anthrax scare reaches the Better Half's workplace, HazMat team called in, but it's OK

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

Hey, we’re playing with the Big Boys now! Not seriously worried, though, it’s almost certainly either sugar or coffee creamer…

http://www.herald-review.com/current/Breaking_News/breaking1.php

Downtown Post Office closed to public: White powder found in lobby
Mon Nov 5 14:02:02 CST 2001
By PAUL BRINKMANN H&R Staff Writer

DECATUR – The downtown U.S. Post Office was closed to the public early this morning after employees found a small amount of granular white powder on a counter in the front lobby.

[Cindy Lyons, officer-in-charge of the postal service’s Decatur operations] said post office employees suspected the substance may be sugar. They searched for sugar packets or coffee creamer in trash cans, but the trash had been emptied already. The lobby was closed just after it opened at 7 a.m.

The anthrax scare is the latest and most disruptive event of its kind in Decatur since anthrax became a national concern. Decatur fire and polic[e] departments responded with the city’s hazardous materials truck. Firefighters donned blue plastic “moon” suits as traffic slowed outside the building, 200 N. Franklin St.

Whoa!! The Better Half came home for lunch, laughing. “The Postmaster, in her infinite wisdom, decided that now would be a good time to reinstitute the Post Office’s policy of leaving the downtown lobby open at night. They used to leave the lobby open, and street people used to come in there and drink coffee, and it was messy, so they started locking the lobby doors at closing time. But since we’re all on a nationwide alert for terrorist acts, she decided that we ought to go back to leaving the lobby open all night.”

He said that people who saw the “powdery substance” said it actually looked more like coffee creamer. And no, they didn’t send all the letter carriers home, because, as the Postmaster explained, “The air ventilation ducts don’t connect between the front of the post office and the back.” Uh huh.

I will keep you posted as the breaking news comes in. Where is Roland Hedley? He’s missing this…

Note: this is hilarious if you know how desperate to play with the Big Boys the Herald & Review has always been–they so badly want Decatur, Illinois to be the Center of the Universe, to be Participating. When Pearl Bailey died, her front page obit read, “Pearl Bailey, who performed once at Millikin University, died Wednesday…” Oh, yeah, she was here, uh-huh, Pearl Bailey…

Everything that happens in the national news has to have a Decatur slant. “Decatur Man Not Killed in World Trade Center Explosions…” “Son of Decatur Woman Stationed at Fort Bragg, May Be Sent to Afghanistan…” Like that.

The only exciting “national news”- type thing that ever happened here was a couple of years ago, when Jesse Jackson, for publicity reasons, decided to take up the cause of seven football players who were expelled from The Cat Who Walks Alone’s high school for brawling in the stands during a football game.

Oh, and–the guy who plays inside the Barney suit? David Joyner? His grandmother lives here, and he lived here himself until he was 12 years old. God’s truth, I swear it.

Oh, and also, the girl who did the singing voice for the Little Mermaid went to Millikin.

[ThisYearsGirl]

There was an anthrax scare in the social sciences building at my college, but it ended up being the powder from a jelly doughnut.

[MEBuckner]

You know, I wonder if this whole business is going to bring sugar cubes back into style?

[racinchikki]

A teacher called in an anthrax scare here at my college after finding a powdery white substance on her chalkboard. I kid you not.