By Leon D'souza

When terror strikes close to home, the awful reality of the troubled times we live in permeates our senses.

On Monday, tension gripped Ogden as police responded to two calls at 9:30 a.m., one from a marketing company, Market Star, and the other from the Ogden Regional Center of the state building. Both organizations received suspicious envelopes containing a white powdery substance. While anthrax is suspected, the nature of the substance will not be known for the next 48 hours.

"The scene involves suspicious envelopes and suspicious substances, but at this time there is no determination that anything is anthrax related," Lt. Scott Sangberg of the Ogden Police Department told KSL-TV's Karen Scullin Monday.

Three employees were decontaminated and rushed to the McKay-Dee hospital, where they were examined. According to Terry Behunin, director of public relations at McKay-Dee, no medication was prescribed.

Dr. Evan Nelson of the Weber-Morgan Health Department told KSL-TV that they believed it was best to hold off on treating the affected employees with even prophylactic antibiotics until the certainty of biological risk has been established.

According to John Levenger, an employee in the internal audit division of the state administration who spoke to the Hard News Café Monday, the envelope delivered to the Ogden Regional Center was received by the Office of Recovery Services. The building, which falls under the purview of the Division of Facilities Management, was subsequently sealed off. KSL-TV added that some employees in both buildings were quarantined while police, fire, and health department personnel assessed the situation.

Health department officials were at pains to emphasize that they were suitably equipped to deal with any kind of biochemical threat. They reminded residents that even if the substance was indeed anthrax, any complications arising from exposure to it could be treated.

This report contains information from KSL-TV.

On The Web:

http://www.ksl.com/TV/content/news/n-anews.htm

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