Volume CXXXIII, Number 8 November 2, 2001 f

Anthrax scare disturbs Tower
ALISON L. McCONNELL
ORIENT STAFF

Since stress abounds on the Bowdoin campus during midterms, it's little wonder that someone might need a stress ball. However, a device geared for such tension-relieving purposes was the cause of a major drama last weekend, for reasons completely unrelated to its nature.

Around 11:00 p.m. last Saturday, College Security was alerted to the presence of "a suspicious powder found in the Tower," said Michael Brown, Assistant Director of Security.

"A dispatcher was calling a student about a separate matter, and it happened to be mentioned," he said. According to sources, someone had been in a Tower bedroom without the owner's knowledge.

At first, no one knew what the substance was, or where it had come from. "Initially, they were unable to identify the substance," said Brunswick Fire Department Deputy Chief Michael Robitaille. "We were called to the scene around 11:20 p.m."

"They responded and took a look," Brown said. "No one could determine [the powder's] origin, and at that point, it was labeled as questionable."

The suspicious powder was later determined to be the contents of a stress ball, and harmless.

File photo

"The [responsible] student came forward, everyone laughed about it, and went home," Brown said. "It ended up working out exactly as we had trained and planned for."

He also indicated that the security team is going to make use of the situation. "We're going to use it as a training exercise," he said.

Had the situation been serious, it appears that Security would have been ready for a more dangerous task. "We're lucky that we're all up to snuff with our knowledge of biochemical threats," Brown said. "It worked out just the way it should have."

The Brunswick Fire Department's newly developed threat assessment team, which covers the entire Midcoast region, is a resource that Brown said was important to have nearby in America's current state of uncertainty. "If there is a suspicious letter, [etc.]...it's a nice resource to have right here in the area; they can be on campus in two minutes."

"We are responding to calls from all over, because we're essentially the leaders in the area," Robitaille said. "We've done about 95 calls, but I don't believe that any of them have amounted to anything serious."

Another situation, one potentially more serious than the anthrax "scare," according to Robitaille, occurred almost two weeks ago.

"On [October] 22nd at 5:45 a.m., we responded to a reported gas leak in the Moulton Union," he said. "Upon arrival, we found that the underground propane tank was leaking."

The fire department quickly cleared the area around Moulton, evacuating Moore Hall and blocking off College Street. "We checked with the proctors and got everyone out," said Louann Dustin-Hunter, Assistant Director of Security.

After investigating the scene, the fire department determined that the relief valve under the building was open. "We don't know how it got open, but it was fully open, and its not supposed to be," Robitaille said.

"We dispersed the propane fumes with a couple of our hose lines and went in and secured the leak," he continued. "We tested the area with gas meters and they had negative readings, so we cleared the scene."

According to the deputy chief, it appears that the leak didn't occur by itself. "We think that somebody tampered with it; I'm not a hundred percent sure, as it's left undetermined in the report," Robitaille said. "A human element appears to have played a role in it."

"It's possible that it was vandalism, but they haven't had any leads as to who might have done it," Dustin-Hunter said. "At this point, we don't know who it was. It's still an open investigation."