Over 200 people, including at least eight senators, were evacuated from the Russell Senate Office Building and quarantined in an underground parking garage for three hours last Wednesday evening due to a false alarm that a nerve agent had been released on Capitol Hill.
"We had this warning system work," said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R.-Ala.). "People in the building followed the directions promptly. There was no panic, no running, no upset or anything like that."
Physician and Majority Leader Bill Frist (R.-Tenn.) said: "There will be questions about whether we had to be quarantined, and the answer to that is yes."
But the event raised a question: Why has a Senate that so obviously is convinced a terrorist might use nerve gas in the Capitol - where the senators work - not already taken decisive action to secure the national borders that ought to protect all Americans from foreign terrorists?
