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New anthrax found in Senate building
Thursday, Oct. 25, 2001
 
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• Testing for Anthrax
• Anthrax: Quick Facts
By ALAN FRAM
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON — Investigators said they have discovered anthrax in a new location in the Hart Senate office building Wednesday evening, even as another congressional office building became the first to reopen since a letter contaminated with the bacteria was discovered last week on Capitol Hill.

Capitol Police Lt. Dan Nichols said anthrax was found on a first-floor freight elevator bank in the Hart building's southwest quadrant. The anthrax-laden letter was opened in the office of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, which is on the fifth and sixth floors of that same building but in its southeast quadrant.

Nichols said investigators would be trying to determine how the anthrax reached the elevator bank, saying they will try to track the possible path of Daschle's mail. While Congress resumed session in the Capitol on Tuesday, all six main congressional office buildings were closed for testing the evening of Oct. 17.

It was the first time authorities said they had found anthrax on Capitol Hill other than in Daschle's office, near it or where mail is processed. Anthrax had previously been detected in three congressional mailrooms and in nasal swabs taken from two aides for Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., whose office is next to Daschle's.

Wary workers were allowed back into the Russell Senate office building across the street from the Capitol on Wednesday morning. The building houses the offices of 36 of the Senate's 100 members.

Nichols said two of the three chief House office buildings — the Rayburn and Cannon buildings — would reopen on Thursday. He said cleansing with antibacterial foam would begin overnight in contaminated mailrooms in the Dirksen Senate office building and the more remote Ford House office building.

``The foam will be used with everything still in the room, with the goal, of course, of killing the anthrax bacteria,'' Nichols said.

Ford could reopen on Friday with its mailroom sealed off, Nichols said.

Daschle, D-S.D., said he hoped the Dirksen Senate building would be usable as early as Friday.

``We want to get as back to normal as quickly as we can,'' Daschle told reporters. ``Allowing senators the opportunity to get back into their offices is a part of our ability to do that.''

Meanwhile, hospital officials for the first time said they are treating a person for possible anthrax whose exposure may have come in the Capitol complex.

That patient is a woman who works for an electronic news organization and was outside Daschle's office the day the letter arrived, said Mike Hall, spokesman for Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, Md., where she is being treated. Hall said she had flu-like symptoms and is in stable condition. A diagnosis is expected Thursday, he said.

The reopening of Russell marked the latest step in Congress' effort to resume regular business following the arrival and opening of an anthrax-laced letter on Oct. 15 in Daschle's office.

Lawmakers abruptly left town last Wednesday and Thursday after 28 people who had been in or near Daschle's office were found to have been exposed to the bacteria's spores. Further contamination has been found in a mailroom in the Dirksen Senate office building where Daschle's letter was apparently handled, and in two other more remote congressional mail facilities.

The office buildings have been closed while investigators scour them for more signs of anthrax. So far, officials have said none has been detected, and for the first time senators or authorized aides will be allowed to enter closed Senate buildings Thursday to retrieve personal or work-related items.

People working in Russell said they were told there was no evidence of anthrax in their building, but were given no details about how individual offices were examined. Everything seemed to be as they left it when the building was closed last Wednesday night, they said.

Sonya Sotak, a legislative aide to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was among those returning to work in Russell. She wondered why their building was reopening while all three House office buildings were still being checked, but said she felt better once she resumed working at her desk.

``Unfortunately, they didn't clear it or throw away anything,'' she said, gazing at the pile of papers.

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