OMFG-WTHWTT ?! “Anthrax” Flushed Down DC Toilet by Visitor Center Supe!

(11AM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

And away go troubles, down the drain !

Taking Crisis Management to a new level of Blasé Faire, the Supervisor at the Washington, DC Capitol Visitor Center (CVC) finds a mysterious baggie of white powder labeled “Anthrax”  in the Exhibition Hall this past weekend.

What does he do with it ?    He flushes it down the restroom toilet !!!

http://thehill.com/homenews/ho…

About an hour later, Capitol Police were notified. The hazardous devices unit found no traces of harmful biological components, such as anthrax spores, during an inspection Saturday that covered the restroom, the route the supervisor allegedly took there and the area where the bag was found.

Capitol Police are investigating Saturday’s incident by reviewing video footage and interviewing employees involved in the incident to try and discover who might have left the bag with the white powder, the officer said.

It remained unclear why the operational supervisor allegedly decided to flush the bag’s contents down the toilet. But visitor assistants with the CVC said there is pressure to keep tours going at all times and that by notifying Capitol Police, it would interrupt the day’s traffic flow.

An hour later ?  

Let’s review the safety procedures again, Sparky ?  

So did they close the building off ?  Oh, no, they just let the visitor tours keep going while they looked at where the guy had carried the baggie around.

Remember the 2001 Anthrax attacks ?   Only killed 5 people and infected 17 to 68 others.  

Wiki-  anthrax attacks

The anthrax attacks came in two waves. The first set of anthrax letters had a Trenton, New Jersey postmark dated September 18, 2001. Five letters are believed to have been mailed at this time to: ABC News, CBS News, NBC News and the New York Post, all located in New York City and to the National Enquirer at American Media, Inc. (AMI) in Boca Raton, Florida.[8]  Robert Stevens, the first person who died from the mailings, worked at a tabloid called Sun, also published by AMI. Only the New York Post and NBC News letters were actually found;[9] the existence of the other three letters is inferred because individuals at ABC, CBS and AMI became infected with anthrax. Scientists examining the anthrax from the New York Post letter said it appeared as a coarse brown granular material looking like Purina Dog Chow.[10]

Two more anthrax letters, bearing the same Trenton postmark, were dated October 9, three weeks after the first mailing. The letters were addressed to two Democratic Senators, Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Patrick Leahy of Vermont. At the time, Daschle was the Senate Majority leader and Leahy was head of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Daschle letter was opened by an aide on October 15, and the government mail service was shut down. The unopened Leahy letter was discovered in an impounded mail bag on November 16. The Leahy letter had been misdirected to the State Department mail annex in Sterling, Virginia, due to a misread ZIP code; a postal worker there, David Hose, contracted inhalational anthrax.

A letter containing anthrax was also mailed to Dr. Antonio Banfi, a pediatrician in Santiago, Chile. Although the return address was Orlando, Florida, the postmark was Zurich, Switzerland. The letter was sent via DHL, which used a Swiss bulk mail shipper in New York and a Swiss postmark. Unlike the anthrax letters with U.S. addressees, the letter to Chile was mailed in a business envelope and had a type-written return address, a business in Florida. Dr. Banfi received the letter, but found it suspicious and gave it to the Chilean authorities. No one is known to have been infected with anthrax from it. The letter baffled American and Chilean officials because, they say, “as they dig deeper, nothing quite adds up.

The official FBI inquiry and conclusion of the anthrax murders remains controversial, the “lone” suspect, government microbiologist biodefense researcher Bruce Edward Ivins,  allegedly committed suicide by overdosing on Tylenol in 2008.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B…    A previous suspect, Steven Hatfill, was officially exonerated in 2008.    Microbiologists do tend to turn up deceased in the strangest ways…..    

Look, we all know you’re trying to be helpful.   And it probably was a prank, weirdos do that all the time.

But just because you are the smartest person in the room, doesn’t mean you know when to use the plumbing !  Call the COPS FIRST NEXT TIME.