fair use...

Link

Mail Being Irradiated for Anthrax Catches Fire at New Jersey Plant; 90 Pounds of Mail Destroyed

BRIDGEPORT, N.J. (AP) - Batches of mail being treated with radiation to eliminate possible anthrax contamination caught fire, apparently because some material overheated, officials said Friday.

Hundreds of large envelopes and magazines - 90 pounds in all - were destroyed during two small fires, one Thursday and one early Friday, said Postal Service spokesman Carl Walton.

"Our engineers believe both incidents are linked to material present in the mail which cause overheating during radiation exposure," said John Gilbert, spokesman for Ion Beam Applications, which operates the plant where the irradiation is being done. "We feel these two incidents are regrettable but expected."

Since mid-November, the plant has been irradiating mail quarantined from the Hamilton Post Office, which closed in October after the office was found to have handled at least four contaminated letters. Quarantined letters were sanitized first; now only large envelopes and magazines are left.

Officials declined to specify what materials might have overheated and caused the fires, saying they did not want to give information to potential saboteurs.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2001

Answers

Snort. But the check is in the mail. Giggle.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2001

Maybe it was one of those perfumed letters. That would be more inflammable.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2001

Think of how much more of a disruption all of this could have been before the days of fax and e-mail.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2001

LOL

[And I had nothing to do with it!]

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2001

Barefoot will still be snarkling about this one when he heads to work tonight.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2001

You know it!!!

ROTFL

[hope I don't slip in the shower...]

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2001