Amid the detritus of the suspects also was a map. Seven locations were circled: Union Station, the Los Angeles subway, the Library Tower, the Bradley Terminal at LAX, Universal Studios' CityWalk, Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills and the Los Angeles County jail.\f7
For Butts, the map was the last straw. LAX is his responsibility, and with the airport itself now a known target and both chemicals and suspects still unaccounted for, the time had come to shut down certain operations. "For a considerable amount of time, the Central Terminal Area [will] be closed," he said.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday September 06, 2006 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 42 words Type of Material: Correction
Terror attack: An article in Monday's Section A about Los Angeles leaders discussing how they would respond to a terrorist attack referred to ricin and anthrax as chemicals. Ricin is a toxic protein, and anthrax is a disease spread by bacterial spores.
Others hesitated. Deputy Mayor Suh noted that some of those targets are private facilities -- the Library Tower, for instance. And LAPD counter-terrorism chief Leap stressed: "We're not going to shut the city of Los Angeles down," an assessment echoed by Hutchens of the sheriff's Office of Homeland Security.
At the Los Angeles Unified School District, this last disclosure was too much. School officials generally opt to keep campuses open, said Dan Isaacs, the district's chief operating officer. Schools are safe places with good supervision. But if any of the identified targets closed, he said, schools in the neighborhood would follow suit.
Hospitals now faced an onslaught, as residents poured in, believing that they were infected. Freeways were clogged with those trying to flee. A lot of people, the FBI's Tidwell observed, took that moment to decide that it would be a good time to "be two states away."
As hospital officials raced to keep up with their load, a number of staff members became sick. Authorities tested air conditioning vents and discovered traces of ricin and anthrax spores. Fielding, the county's public health chief, now faced two barrels of a catastrophe: how to treat the sick, and how to persuade doctors and nurses to come to work.
"There would probably be definite attrition," he told the panel. "On a good day, we don't have enough nurses."
The Fire Department did its best to help. Special equipment allows city fire officials to conduct field tests for anthrax, and can respond to 100 to 200 scenes a day, said Mario Rueda, a department chief. At the same time, officials desperately sought to inform the public about ricin and anthrax, stressing that poisoning from those agents is not contagious.
Still, as hospitals attempted to triage thousands of patients -- some actually sick, others merely overreacting to colds or coughs -- the system was confronted with more than it could take. Under such circumstances, Fielding conceded, it would be "hard to keep hospitals open."
