Posted on 10/13/2001 9:03:35 PM PDT by OKCSubmariner
EXCERPTED:
A broadening national bioterrorism investigation turned toward St. Petersburg late Friday after NBC officials disclosed that a New York employee has contracted anthrax.
A woman who opens the mail for news anchor Tom Brokaw was diagnosed with a skin form of anthrax several days after she opened a letter that contained white powder and was postmarked from St. Petersburg.
The New York Times on Friday received a letter with a white powder and the St. Petersburg Times received one earlier in the week. All three letters were postmarked in St. Petersburg.
Federal law enforcement officials said late Friday that all three letters postmarked St. Petersburg tested negatively for anthrax.
[However, the test for the letter sent from St. Petersburg to the Brokaw aide must have been unsuccessful (too small a sample size?) because the aide in fact did contract Anthrax. This point was made by Ted Kopel on ABC Nightline last night. This calls into question the negative test results for the other two letters since they were also sent from St. Petersburg and may not have had inadequate sample size].
• An assistant to NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw contracted the skin-based form of anthrax after opening a "threatening" letter to her boss.
Officials quickly said there was no known link to either the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks or the more serious inhaled form of anthrax that killed a supermarket tabloid editor in Florida last week. The 38-year-old NBC employee was being treated with antibiotics and is expected to recover. The letter was postmarked in St. Petersburg on Sept. 20 and opened Sept. 25, authorities said.
St. Petersburg Times columnist Howard Troxler opened his letter at his desk Tuesday. As he did so, a white powdery substance, resembling sugar or salt, spilled out.
Troxler stopped opening the letter. Authorities were called to the newspaper's offices in downtown St. Petersburg. Police put the envelope in an airtight container and drove it to a state health lab in Tampa for analysis. Firefighters covered Troxler's desk with a plastic sheet and yellow emergency-scene tape reading "caution."
Health officials found no signs of anthrax or bacteria in the powder. The envelope and a letter inside also tested negative.
The letter had no return address and was postmarked St. Petersburg. It bears a code 337, then a space, then 1.
Anything that is mailed in Seminole, Largo, Bay Pines, Gulfport, Pinellas Park or any St. Petersburg neighborhood goes through the main post office on First Avenue N and is stamped with a 337. [Actual envelop shown in article and the zip code is visible as 33701 and the postmark can be made out as early (“0?”) October 2001 for St. Petersburg]
The cryptic letter misspelled Troxler's name and had little punctuation. It said:
"Howard Toxler ... 1st case of disease now blow away this dust so you see how the real thing flys. OKLAHOMA-RYDER TRUCK! Skyway bridge-18 wheels." [Oklahoma-Ryder Truck capitalized for emphasis by FR poster, original version did not use capital letters]
Just thought it was worth repeating.
Whoever is doing the mailing from St. Petersburg is a terrorist wanna be.
You are correct. In the press conf. this morning (10/13), Gulliani said that they found an earlier dated
letter that did test positive for anthrax - it was postmarked NJ.
Or someone who's used to writing the script of arabic or farsi, perhaps? The plot seems to be thickening.
Thanks Dan Day! Looks like we are dealing with something more than letters and white papers here.
If you follow their recent modus operandi, the plan will likely involve several trucks, well spaced out, set to go off nearly simultanously.
Are there any high-population areas that only have one bridge to the mainland? I want to say North Carolina has one such area, and perhaps Galveston Island in Texas, but are there others? They could take out a bridge and carry out other attacks on the island with fire and rescue personnel unable to get to the island in time.
You know, when you stop and think about it, there are all sorts of ways to hit us. That's part of the problem of being an open, and geographically huge, country.
Hey, after a couple a beers and a tylenol 3 this stuff doesn´t seem as dire...
It was damaged once resulting in several deaths a number of years ago when a ship went astray of the channel and ran into one of the piers causing part of the bridge to collapse. My brother in law who still lives in that area missed the accident by about 15 minutes. He was running late that day. The bridge was hit during the morning rush hour.
From this post:
"Scientists investigating the attacks say the bacteria used is similar to the 'Ames strain' of anthrax originally cultivated at Iowa State University in the 1950s and later given to labs throughout the world, including Iraq."
I don't know, it seems like a pretty standard terrorist mind-f*** to me. Bin Laden issues vague warnings about "storms of airplanes" and "stay away from tall buildings and aircraft" in his video tape, then the authorities get more specific threats, via anthrax-laced mail bombs sent to journalists, that are a bit more specific--then they are left with the problem, do we tell the public? Do we ban all trucks from crossing that bridge? Are they talking about the bridge in FL or the one in Chicago? What is the timeframe? Is this a head fake? Will we look bad if we don't publicize the threat and then they hit it? Etc., etc. This is just how terrorism works.
Why, am I not suprised.
If bio-terror came from Iraq, we are within international law, not that I care about such a thing, to nuke them (Iraq) glowing.
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