I came across this in a post over at Young Philly Politics:
If a bioterrorist attack happens in Philadelphia, large numbers of people may need medicine quickly to prevent sickness.
To give medicine to people during an emergency, the City may open up medication centers. People will be directed to go to these centers to pick up medicine for their families.
Postal carriers may also be able to get these emergency medications to people.
On Sunday, June 24, 2007, local, state and national officials are conducting an exercise to test the delivery of emergency medicine.
Postal carriers will deliver small, empty, cardboard boxes that represent medication to approximately 52,000 households in the Germantown (19144), Fairmount (19130), and Boulevard (19149) areas of Philadelphia. A Philadelphia Police Department officer will be with each postal carrier as part of the test.
For this test, this empty box is meant to represent emergency medications that would prevent people from becoming sick from a bioterrorist attack.
In an actual emergency, you should pay attention to KYW 1060 AM and other local news for directions from public officials on how to protect yourself or receive help.
This is only a test. There is nothing you need to do.
Yay! An empty box! I can put beer... er uh... sodas in it.
Anyway, the person who posted it on YPP did it with the intention of sparking a debate about the usefulness of such an exercise vs. the expense to taxpayers vs. this being another scare tactic to remind us of the war on terror. So far, no one has taken the bait but there is a good amount of activity in the same debate over at Daily Kos.
Just because I've been accused in the past of opening completely irrelevant cans of worms, I'll ask the question, will the people who receive these cardboard boxes be able to put them in the weekly recycling?
If you have a strong feeling about whether this exercise is necessary or a waste of time and energy I encourage you to go the YPP post and participate. If you want to talk about cardboard recycling, comment here. I'll brace myself for the flood of comments.