Anthrax scare brought new fears of biological attacks
■ Last year there were 150 investigations of suspected anthrax contamination.
Eleven months after anthraxlaced envelopes killed five people and prompted nationwide fear of the mail, U.S. Postal Service officials said they are alert to the danger of a potential biological attack.
“What we went through locally, it did make us better prepared and gave us a heightened awareness for detecting and dealing with any potential hazards,” said Judy Mahaffey, a postal service spokeswoman in Chattanooga.
Since October, deadly anthrax spores have found their way into federal mailrooms, Capitol Hill offices and media newsrooms. Five people have died from exposure to the substance. Another 18 were hospitalized and hundreds found themselves taking 60-day prescriptions of the antibiotic Cipro to protect against infection.
In the Chattanooga area, at least four postal facilities were closed temporarily last year after suspicious powder was found in several envelopes and packages. Health officials later ruled all the local cases were false alarms or deliberate hoaxes.
Though no real cases of anthrax contamination were found in Tennessee, Georgia or Alabama, postal officials in the region said they have implemented a biological weapon safety system.
“Now we’re trying to stay on the safe side,” Ms. Mahaffey said. “I think we all feel fortunate that every single reported incident in our region did turn out to be a hoax or a false alarm.”
Don Allen, director of emergency services for Hamilton County, said that last year there were 150 investigations of suspected anthrax contamination.
“It became cold and chilling at that time about what the potential was,” he said. “We were beating a path between here and Nashville taking samples up there.”
Since then, emergency officials in the region have developed an emergency biological agent contamination plan, Mr. Allen said. While they won’t discuss specifics, citing the need for security, he said emergency response agencies now are more organized should another event occur.
“The way we deal with the situation now is more structured than it was in the past, and our plan of action is much more defined now a year later than it was last year,” he said.
In March the postal service released a 158-page report detailing how it hopes to prevent and detect exposure through the mail to chemical agents.
Postal service employees also went through training sessions on how to handle potential biological hazards, Ms. Mahaffey said.
“I don’t think anyone ever dreamed there would be an attack like that,” she said. “But seeing it happen, as a nation, it changed all of us. But I think it was a relief that (locally) it didn’t turn out to be what it appeared at first.”