The bubonic plague, Ebola virus and anthrax will soon have a new home on the hurricane-ravaged Galveston Island.
In a plan that sounds like a horror movie waiting to happen, a large biological defense laboratory will house these, and other, deadly diseases for scientists to study, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
While findings from this research could certainly benefit science and society, the risks involved with conducting it this close to the tumultuous Gulf Coast seem far too great.
Officials say the labs and generators will be 30 feet above sea level and that the building can withstand wind speeds of 140 miles per hour, thus making the venture safe, the Times reported.
While the building suffered very little damage from Hurricane Ike, the Category 2 storm hit the coast with 110 mile-per hour winds and a 13.5-foot storm surge, Fox News reported. According to the National Hurricane Center, Category 5 storms can have a storm surge of 18 feet above normal and winds of 155 miles-per hour or more – well above the highest the building can withstand.
If this lab were truly secure, it would need to be able to endure winds of much greater speeds than that of the highest-level hurricane. The chances of a Category 5 storm making a direct hit on Galveston may be slim, but it doesn’t matter. When dealing with diseases responsible for the downfall of a number of civilizations, all precautions must be taken.
Officials will require scientists shut down and sterilize projects 24 hours before a storm makes landfall, the Times reported, and an official said freezers will keep the incredibly dangerous diseases dormant for four days.
Four days does not seem like nearly enough time for the appropriate workers to get to a storm-torn island and secure biohazards.
The island is already home to a smaller lab that holds "extremely lethal pathogens," the Times reported. The dangers involved in adding another, larger lab are far too great to place in such a high-risk area. Galveston sits about 50 miles from the fourth largest city in the country.
"You could put it out in the middle of nowhere and it would be a safe, secure facility," Rona Hirschberg, a senior program officer at the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, told the New York Times. "But the research wouldn’t get done."
With research as potentially perilous as this, researchers should travel to where it will be safe. A "safe, secure facility" is exactly what this needs to be, and if that means having it somewhere else, that’s what should be done.
