Thursday, November 01, 2001
Anthrax scare at IRS office
Closed four hours; lab tests negative
By Jim Hannah
The Cincinnati Enquirer
COVINGTON — An envelope containing powder tested negative for anthrax, but not before the latest local terrorist scare shut down the Cincinnati Internal Revenue Service Center for four hours Wednesday.
The complex covers two city blocks in Covington and processes quarterly business tax returns from 13 states, including Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana.
Fire officials said their department was called to the center at 9:40 a.m. Wednesday after a 21-year-old woman in a mail receiving area opened an envelope containing powder.
As a precaution, the center's 1,500 employees were not allowed to enter or leave the building for four hours, and hazardous material crews wearing decontamination suits removed the letter. Five employees were washed down, and the 21-year-old woman was sent to a Northern Kentucky hospital for observation.
A more accurate 19-hour test will now be conducted on the substance to confirm it is not a biological agent, said Lt. Col. Jim Liles, spokesman for Covington Police.
The preliminary test has a 95 percent accuracy rate, Lt. Col. Liles said. It was not immediately clear what the powder was, he said, but it appeared the letter was a hoax. Covington police drove the letter to Kentucky's crime lab 90 minutes away in Frankfort where a preliminary test came back negative. Lt. Col. Liles said police did not get a chance to examine the letter before it was sent to the crime lab. Results from the final test should be available today.
A similar scare on Oct. 9 closed the center for six hours. Tests later confirmed no anthrax in that letter. Lt. Col. Liles said it was probably just “paper dust.”
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