gina50
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posted on October 24, 2001 12:27:53 PM new
You can imagine my surprise when this morning I went to my local small town Post Office to mail my many ebay packages, parking lot empty ( thinking, cool ~ timed this run just right) & big note on door ~CLOSED !! Spooky 
So, went back this afternoon about 3PM and still closed and also no mail has been delivered in my area !!
Just wondered if any others were closed today, I know it is not a holiday, right ??
I am not a paranoid type, I believe when your times up, it's up !!
I didn't hear anything on the news.
I am located in Royersford, Pa. approx 35 minutes northwest of Philadelphia
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Meya
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posted on October 24, 2001 12:36:27 PM new
We got mail today in Northeast Ohio. Was there anything in your local news? If you don't get the paper, can you read it online?
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gina50
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posted on October 24, 2001 12:44:53 PM new
Hi Meya 
No ~ nothing on the news or online papers however all our papers are morning editions, no evening papers.
Just found this to be very wierd and all these customers were standing outside trying to figure out why they were closed !!
Someone will probably send a news tip to the news station ~ not me.... don't want all those reporters out here !!
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packer
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posted on October 24, 2001 12:47:08 PM new
I just came from my little hometown PO where I work part time for a 2 hour talk that is already outdated from the events that have taken place in the last 2 days.
No talk of shuting down the postal service "yet".
Its getting scary, I'll just bet they mandate that we wear masks and gloves.
My burning question is can the anthrax spores hitchhike on envelopes that have come in contact with the infected envelope?
packer
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outoftheblue
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posted on October 24, 2001 12:55:25 PM new
packer
I'd like an answer to that myself but I have another question. Is trace amounts of Anthrax even a threat? Maybe for skin infection but you have to inhale a lot of it to get sick...
I forgot to mention the postal service is having a press confrence today. Maybe we'll find out more about what's going on.
[ edited by outoftheblue on Oct 24, 2001 12:57 PM ]
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gina50
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posted on October 24, 2001 12:58:57 PM new
Hi Packer
I know our PO had that talk on Monday since I am always in there and know all of them very well.. so I don't think this is why they were closed
I heard on the radio this morning (talk radio out of New Jersey) that "the stuff" can go along with the mail... sort of travels with it... if "that stuff" is there
Don't want to say THE WORD since I am sick to death of hearing it, that's all our media talks about.. I understand it can be serious but I think the media just talks too much for our own good
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davidx
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posted on October 24, 2001 12:59:56 PM new
I think you would have to receive an evelope with anthrax in it to be enough to inhale.
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jfpnatl
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posted on October 24, 2001 01:21:28 PM new
Small amounts arent enough to infect you from what I have gathered. You can actually be exposed and never get sick.
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heygrape
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posted on October 24, 2001 01:30:06 PM new
On the USPS Delivery Confirmation site, I can't get it to do a delivery confirmation shipping label today. I even had someone else try to make one and it wouldn't work for her either.
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shrty411
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posted on October 24, 2001 01:37:17 PM new
well I worked 8 hrs today at the PO in Detroit. We're not closed. Haven't heard of anything. There could have been s "scare"- some suspicious mail piece or something to close a paticular PO.
From what I've heard those workes that died-they "think" the sorting machines spewed that stuff around.
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mslibby
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posted on October 24, 2001 02:31:00 PM new
Our main post office was open this morning. Though there were NO CUSTOMERS! I walked right up to a window. VERY UNUSUAL! I was in and out of there in less than 5 minutes. Gotta love that!
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Eventer
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posted on October 24, 2001 02:33:25 PM new
Maybe it's a regional thing. Down here in the south (where we aint afraid on nothin), mine has been jammed every day, no matter when you go in. I asked the clerks if they'd had any fallout (no pun intended) from the scare & their remark were "We wish!".
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iluvladybugs
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posted on October 24, 2001 02:51:45 PM new
I used the online USPS delivery confirmation site for the first time today, and it went right through. I wish that I had discoverd it sooner, it is so much easier.
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kiddo2
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posted on October 24, 2001 04:45:21 PM new
[ edited by kiddo2 on Oct 24, 2001 05:28 PM ]
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Eventer
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posted on October 24, 2001 04:54:17 PM new
What a winner.
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gina50
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posted on October 24, 2001 05:35:56 PM new
OK ~ found out why my PO was closed today in small town USA and no mail delivery & can you guess?? ~~ anyone.......anyone .... ????
Yep ~ you are right..... white powder scare or something to that effect !!
Nothing on the news, so will have to wait until morning paper YIKES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NOT gina50 on ebay
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mballai
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posted on October 24, 2001 06:00:36 PM new
Been there/here in Illinois. The PO shut down for what turned out to be laundry powder.
All this wastes a lot of time and will cost the economy many millions. I hope they catch the people doing this right away.
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gina50
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posted on October 24, 2001 06:10:15 PM new
I wish there was a way to track or rather to take a count of ebay sellers sales ~
with the ones who state that they ship UPS or Federal Express ~ versus the ones who state that they ship USPS Would be very interesting don't you think ?
I have noticed that my sales have slowed down over the last week ~ thinking of changing to UPS or other but there is that problem of finding boxes..... hooked on having all of my boxes delivered to the house for free
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traceyg
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posted on October 24, 2001 08:24:58 PM new
There was one postal employee that has the skin anthrax near Philly but that was in the news a few weeks ago. Can't see why they would be shut down unless someone was doing a hoax. We had a few of those (Live in a city) and the post office was shut down for a good part of the day.
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gravid
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posted on October 24, 2001 08:52:45 PM new
I hear they are going to issue gloves and masks but I am telling you right now it will be hard to get people to use them properly.
The supervisors are going to start complaining if you take the time to dispose of them and fit new ones when you take a break or use the bathroom, and what are they going to do at the end of their shift? Go home in contaiminated cothing and shake it all over their house? They don't have showers and changing rooms. They will probably issue one change of gloves and mask and ignore the fact there is no way to take them on and off all day without contaiminating the insides.
I have worked all day in a mask and it is very tiring and hot fighting the extra effort to breath through one.
[ edited by gravid on Oct 24, 2001 08:54 PM ]
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naru
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posted on October 24, 2001 09:06:09 PM new
Why is there no decent information on this?
24 hour so called "news" stations and nothing but hysterical sound bites.
I want a "map" the infected letters were mailed from here to here hence a and b were infected we have shut down a and b to
clean them and are taking steps to set up irradiators to process mail and test postal workers in any facility suspected of
processing an infected letter. How about some actual journalism and leadership? Instead you get that irresponsible person in
charge of the US mail saying "the threat is in mail"
Brilliant!
The economy cannot function without the mail, end of story and they better get themselves
together fast cause the problems of a few eBayers don't amount to a hill of beans in a nation paralysed with fear.
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commentary
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posted on October 24, 2001 09:38:00 PM new
SO WHO'S BEEN EATING WHITE POWDER DONUTS IN THE POST OFFICE?
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outoftheblue
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posted on October 25, 2001 12:27:48 AM new
Paranoia is rampant in the home of the brave 
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Eventer
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posted on October 25, 2001 05:25:45 AM new
SO WHO'S BEEN EATING WHITE POWDER DONUTS IN THE POST OFFICE
HAD to be the policemen there to stand guard.
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Microbes
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posted on October 25, 2001 05:29:16 AM new
have worked all day in a mask and it is very tiring and hot fighting the extra effort to breath through one.
Yes.
BUT... Postal employees have a wage/benefit package that is as good as the military. Give them the masks and gloves, and if they refuse to work, they kiss their retirement goodbye.
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pyth00n
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posted on October 25, 2001 07:52:57 AM new
I confess I posted a few days ago in RoundTable along the lines that the anthrax effects (likely from bin Laden, originating in Iraq IMO) were pretty trivial. Now I'm not so sure the effects won't get serious to our national commerce and psyche. Those two postal workers dying of inhaled form are really bad news if the maniac(s) who sent it have much more at all.
I don't like to consider the effects of, say, another hundred envelopes sent out, each containing quantities of spores that would leak all through the postal system, with many of them going to random average people. Just saw a fellow on NBC talking about applying cobalt irradiation facilities to mail... might take two years to build sufficient new equipment to sterilize all mail, might add 5c per envelope to the cost. But in the meantime, if people saw real indications of contamination of postal handling facilities and any random people at all getting even the simple skin infections...... brrrrr.
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