Officials deluged with calls, but no anthrax found here
| • | Hawai'i prepared to treat outbreak, officials say |
By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer
With Hawai'i residents fearing "anthrax powder" in everything from potatoes to panty hose, State Health Director Bruce Anderson said yesterday that no bacteria have been found and that people should calm down.
Jan TenBruggencate • The Honolulu Advertiser
"If people paid as much attention to getting vaccinated for the flu season as they are to this anthrax scare, they could really have an impact on health," Anderson said.
Kaua'i firefighters prepare to decontaminate employees at the Lihu'e offices of State Farm Insurance, where a white powder was found on the door to a claims office and in a letter sent from a Mainland State Farm firm.
Although the state wants people to report suspicious mail if they can't identify the sender, Anderson said, many of the calls have been unjustified. Overwhelmed, the state has referred many of the cases to a U.S. Navy lab here.
Dealing with the calls is no small matter. For example, at several locations on Kaua'i, firefighters decontaminated office workers — including 18 from the Lihu'e Airport post office — while storing their clothing, giving them soapy showers and sending them home in paper suits.
The Centers for Disease Control suggest paying close attention to packages with excessive postage, weight or wrappings; handwritten or poorly typed addresses; incorrect titles; misspellings; stains or odors; or no return address.
If you can't identify the sender of such a package, Anderson said, put it, unopened, in a container, such as a plastic bag, leave it in a closed room, wash up and call 911.
But Anderson said too many people are finding ordinary mail or any white powder to be suspicious.
Prominent individuals have been principal targets of such mailings, he said.
John Cummings of O'ahu Civil Defense said emergency units responded to two-dozen cases since Friday, and tests proved negative in all 11 cases in which samples were taken.
"One of the calls was from a lady who received a suspicious package that turned out to be panty hose," Cummings said. "Another was from someone who bought potatoes at a supermarket and found the bag untied and suspected tampering."
A substance found at Honolulu airport was candy powder, he said.
The Fire Department's Hazardous Materials Unit responded to 15 calls by 9:30 last night, said Capt. Richard Soo. He said that's as many calls as the department normally handles in a month.
"It looks like what is happening is people are coming home and going through their mail and calling about suspicious items," Soo said.
"And we are getting mostly those cases in which the police, who are the first to respond, think there may be something to the suspicion."
Three post offices around the state closed temporarily while officials checked suspicious packages that turned out to be a mass mailing from a Virginia Christian organization that used a different wrapping than normal, a postal official said.
The Kailua post office was evacuated briefly after workers sorting mail became suspicious about the "Campus Crusade for Christ" mailing wrapped in a brown paper sack, stapled at the top, with no return address, Soo said.
"People need to know it's not necessary to panic," said Felice Broglio of the U.S. Postal Service. "Some of what is on the mail is just dirt and dust."
But the Postal Service itself was the source of some of the confusion.
On the Big Island, the Kamuela post office was closed for almost four hours because of a scare over a white powdery substance, and nearby Waimea Elementary and Middle School reacted by keeping students inside.
Fire Capt. Peter Jose said the suspicious material was fire retardant sent by the U.S. Postal Service. "They knew it was going in the mail but never told their people here."
Fire Capt. Steven Ozaki said his Hilo-based hazardous materials team drove 56 miles to Waimea, inspected the material, then allowed the office to reopen around 1 p.m.
Bill Perry of the state's Hazardous Evaluation and Emergency Response office said a white powder found at Honolulu airport's post office over the weekend also turned out to be fire retardant.
Broglio said there was nothing unusual about the retardant material, but said Neighbor Island units may have not been familiar with it.
"Now we know better," she said of yesterday's Waimea incident. "We need to share that information."
Kaua'i Fire Department hazardous materials crews, along with ambulances, Health Department personnel and police, responded to reports of suspicious substances at six locations yesterday.
There was a package leaking a white powder at the U.S. Postal Service facility at Lihu'e Airport, a piece of mail with white powder at the Kapa'a post office, white powder on the door of State Farm Insurance's Lihu'e claims office, white powder in a letter from a State Farm Mainland office to its Haleko Road offices, and powder in a stairwell at the Holiday Inn SunSpree Resort in Wailua.
Maui fire crews responded to five suspicious-substance calls yesterday, including one in which white granules had fallen out of a letter opened by a Kihei resident.
Maui Assistant Fire Chief Alan Cordeiro said the substance and a variety of suspicious packages from across the island were collected and sent for testing.
Staff writers Tim Hurley, Hugh Clark, Rod Ohira, David Waite, Jan TenBruggencate and the Associated Press contributed to this article.
