In Search of a Source

As FBI agents continued to comb a nearby town that has become ground zero in the war on bioterrorism, anxious postal workers gathered Saturday by the hundreds at a hospital here to be tested for exposure to anthrax.

Some came straight from home to the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, clutching coffee cups with shaking fingers. Others, dressed in their blue uniforms, stopped by during their lunch break.

All just wanted one thing: the truth.

“We’ve done our work. We just want some answers about what is going on,” said Valerie Williams, a postal clerk who has worked in the Hamilton Square distribution center for 15 years. “Our questions have been put off and ignored by the postal inspector and the FBI for so long, everyone’s frustrated.”

A short drive away in the Ewing neighborhood of tidy homes where investigators have traced letters laden with anthrax sent through the mail to New York and Washington, the sunlit afternoon seemed perfect. The exception, though, were the dark-suited FBI agents going door to door for a second day, asking whether anyone had seen anything unusual in recent weeks.

Neighborhood residents learned late last week that their letter carrier--a woman named Terry--had been found to have an anthrax skin infection. Her illness helped investigators narrow their search for the source of two anthrax-contaminated letters--one mailed to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), the other to NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw.

“It’s been weird,” said Ed Kerr, who has lived in the neighborhood for four years. “I think if anything unusual or different had gone on, someone would have noticed. This is the kind of place where everyone knows everyone else and recognizes the cars.”

His wife, Barbara, said it still seemed hard to believe that anyone locally is involved.

“I just think she got it at the post office, not here,” she said.

Hoping to assuage residents’ fears, Ewing Mayor Alfred Bridges, Hamilton Square Mayor Glen Gilmore and local union officials contacted postal workers Saturday to tell them that free anthrax testing was available for the nearly 1,000 employees at the two facilities.

While some union leaders said they were satisfied with the government’s response, one local official has complained that his members did not receive the same treatment as did the Capitol Hill staff members, who had access to on-site medical help after an anthrax-laced letter was opened in Daschle’s office.

“Are we any different than the people in the Senate?” asked Robert Lauer Jr., vice president of the local American Postal Workers Union, in an interview with the Trenton Times.

At the U.S. Post Office’s West Trenton Branch in Ewing, a sign informed customers Saturday that the building would be closed until further notice. Hand-printed cards directing people to mail their letters from another location were taped over the blue drop boxes out in front of the facility.

Yet the scene was less jarring than the day before, when roadblocks prevented cars from getting close to the building and hazardous material teams dressed in full protective gear searched the area.

“This is just a small part of everything that is going on,” said Dorothy Saaz, 86, who was turned away from her regular post office. “It’s terrible, but I don’t think it will be the last thing that happens. I worry for my children and grandchildren who still have their whole lives to live.”

Rumors that workers had been infected with the anthrax bacteria began to spread in the Hamilton Square office last weekend, when FBI and U.S. Postal Service investigators arrived at the station. On Oct. 13, Gilmore met with federal investigators, who told him that two letters containing anthrax had passed through this office on U.S. Highway 130.

By the start of the workweek Monday, everyone was talking about the rumors, postal clerk Williams said. Managers called a meeting that afternoon to calm staff and take questions, according to several postal employees who attended the briefing.

“They wouldn’t tell us anything,” Williams said. “They wouldn’t tell us if it [anthrax] was brown or white. They wouldn’t say if it could stick to our clothes. All they said was wash your clothes and use soap and water on your hands a lot.”

Walking into the hospital Saturday, workers filled out forms and were taken to a waiting room, Medical staff examined them one by one, giving them a cursory exam before taking a nasal swab.

Each worker was given a small orange bottle with a seven-day supply of the antibiotic Cipro. They were told to return to the hospital in one week to pick up their anthrax test results.

Late in the day, officials said about 340 employees had been screened Friday and Saturday.

While local residents said they understood the need for environmental sweeps of post offices and the resulting slowdown of the mail delivery system, their patience was wearing thin.

Hamilton Square resident George Marco recently moved to the area and is in the process of building a house. He relies on a post office box--located in the now-shuttered Hamilton Square post office--for his mail.

“The last time I got in there was on the 12th,” Marco said as he peered into the building’s windows. “I’ve got paychecks in there. I’ve got bills. I’ve got to get in there.”

But on Saturday, he got only as far as the locked doors. Postal officials declined to say when the facilities would reopen.