CHICAGO (CBS) — Trace amounts of radiation from Japan have been detected in Chicago. As WBBM Newsradio 780′s Mike Krauser reports, travelers coming in from Japan on Wednesday triggered radiation detectors at O’Hare as they passed through customs. Only very small amounts of radiation were detected. In one instance, radiation was detected in a plane’s air filtration system. Radiation was also found in luggage and on passengers on flights from Japan.
Mayor Richard M. Daley and other city officials wouldn’t provide any additional details, saying federal authorities were handling the situation.
“Of course the protection of the person coming off the plane is important in regards to any radiation and especially within their families,” Daley said at an unrelated event.
The mayor said the city has no local policy when it comes to detecting radiation at the airports.
“That would be up to the federal government. Every city can’t have a policy. One says yes, one says no, you can’t do that. You have to have a federal policy dealing with anyone entering the country in regards to the situations like that,” Daley said. “And they handle it very professionally and it will be up to Homeland Security. We’ve been working with them. They have the primary responsibility.”
Chicago Aviation Department Commissioner Rosemarie Andolino confirmed that at least two planes tested positive for elevated radiation levels.
What a mess..
The sensors are very sensitive. They would go off all the time. I expect that they are regularly triggered by common and natural radiation sources like souvenir fuel rods and ninja stars fashioned from weapons grade plutonium.
I gotta say, sargasso that’s one of the funniest comments I’ve ever seen on this blog.
Kewl.
I wonder how many Japanese you’d have to heap in a pile to reach critical mass.
Now would be a perfect time to slip a dirty nuke into the country piggybacking on a Japanese freighter.
Its just like the episode from the Twilight Zone William Shatner et al
Ye those helpful people at the border post or the scanning will tell you not to worry it really does not matter – only one big false alarm
How come on CNN they don’t tell me this
Guess its one big false alarm
Maybe it was eating those irradiated potato chips did it
Perhaps we should not buy Toyotas now as they will be irradiated and infected
After all all it took to create the great hero Spiderman was one bite from a radioactive spider
Actually it turns out most of the people are testing fine but their shoes have the radiation, so they are forced to leave their shoes at the airport.
Nobody was strip/cavity searched. I’m OUTRAGED!
Just relax. They are simply returning that stuff we left there at the end of WWII.
Of course, American airports are required to investigate every potential activity needed to maintain the TSA budget.
If you fly into Hong Kong, this weekend — you will have to walk miles to find someone who can tell you where to get a radiation check. Down two floors, another mile – and you bump into obvious medical staff.
You ask, “Can I be checked here?” And they reply, “Were you in contact with suspected avian flu?”
Yup. One category where the United States maintains its #1 spot – paranoia.
The hype over radiation is a bit misplaced. Levels well above US Government safe levels can be quite OK. Some people deliberately go to radon mines thinking it is therapeutic. Some studies have even shown low levels of radiation to have a vaccine like effect, with lower cancer levels among people who were living near radiation zones.
I miss my Radium See-In-The-Dark wristwatch I had as a child.
That was the BEST glow in the dark watch I ever had. My Rolex sucks as far as seeing it at night.
Okay so they were able to detect dust that was hotter than the normal background dirt. Nobody said this stuff was hot enough that having it on your cloths was actually dangerous so its just more scare mongering.
Scare the the bald, bob tailed monkeys and watch your ratings climb. Tell the truth and watch them plunge.
#11. Yes, and the people who painted those dials….dead from radiation poisoning.
But you already knew that.
A mess indeed.
Aside from MikeN , I don’t see a whole lot of the “let’s build nuclear plants on every corner” loons.
While I support Obama’s direction that nuclear has a role to play in our comprehensive energy plan, this disaster should quiet the nuclear loons somewhat.
Who needs a dirty bomb? I guess this is payback for the two we dropped on them.
Nuclear power can only be safe when two things are accomplished:
1. The facilities are disaster proof.
2. They can safely deal with waste.
Thats it. It can’t be done.
“That would be up to the federal government.” Great! At last, a justification for the TSA to check you going AND coming.
# 11 1873 Colt said,”I miss my Radium See-In-The-Dark wristwatch I had as a child.” Think of the positive: you’d wouldn’t be able to see the dial these days because of the cataracts.
#16 McCullough,
Do those two rules also apply, to say crude pumped from the seabed?
#18. “Do those two rules also apply, to say crude pumped from the seabed?”
Yes, absolutely. Coal as well. I believe we have the resources, but not the will, to find alternatives.
Nothing from McCullough about our Nobel Prize-winning president ordering an attack on a sovereign Arab country. Hmm.
Damn neocons.
Damn typos, too!
#16 I would argue that:
1. The facilities are disaster proof: the Japanese reactors survived an 8.9 earthquake (more than it was designed to withstand) and a tsunami. The 30-year-old design had a serious flaw: it requires an active power system for cooling. Newer designs don’t have that requirement.
2: They can safely deal with waste. Reactors in France and India recycle used fuel rods and re-use them in the reactors. Again, newer designs exist which can use up much of the waste fuel. Only the U.S. has a policy of leaving the spent fuel rods lying around all over the place.
#20. Illuminati – I’d be happy if our Nobel Prize Winning Prez stopped worrying about “March Madness” and started leading. Not gonna happen. Other than that, it’s off topic.
BTW, fixed your typo.
Not to worry no nukes and pro nukes folks whats stopping new nukes is a lack investors not the Government. Investors are less likely to fork over the cash now then on March 10th and most of the pro nukes folks are the same ones who don’t want the Government to spend any more money so they sure shouldn’t want the US Gov. to back those investors.
Its not the environmentalist stopping the nukes its just simple capitalism and McCullough two reasons make it a bad investment.
Dallas, what makes you think I want nukes on every corner? I doubt the extreme scenarios presented by the global warming crowd, therefore I do not see nukes as a necessity.
Was this before or after they went through the naked body scanners.
#22
On your first point… /flips on tv watches news for a minute… Those reactors don’t look like they survived the earthquake to me. I dunno, they blew up an stuff. Maybe you and I have different standars for what total failure looks like…
On your second point… /watches the tv video of the nuclear waste smoldering as people desperately try to deal with it/
Uh, are you and I watching the same disaster at all????
1800 people died on two trains that were washed away – that should quiet all those Amtrak nuts
#28
Hey the good news is that Europe just went to war with Africa…
# 27 GregA said, “don’t look like they survived the earthquake to me”
I think the point is the reactors were subjected to forces well beyond their design specifications – specs that were established by the Japanese gubbmint NOT General Electric. Yet, they did not collapse. The subsequent damage has been due to a lack of cooling to the cores not an inherent failure of the containment chambers.
Newer designs, I have read, use passive cooling systems that are much less likely to fail in a disaster situation. If you ask me (and, of course, no one here did) instead of spending billions on a “high speed” rail (that averages something like 35 mph!) we’d be much better off by spending that money on new nuke power plants or maybe fusion power.