The September 11th attack
Notification, testing issues emerge from anthrax scare

By Johnny Brannon and Robbie Dingeman
Advertiser Staff Writers

Honolulu's first serious anthrax scare exposed several problems that officials say must be overcome to ensure that any future incidents are handled more smoothly and without the kind of public anxiety that occurred Tuesday.

U.S. postal inspectors are upset the city did not notify them of Tuesday's anthrax scare on Bethel Street, and they will meet today with Mayor Jeremy Harris to guarantee they are not left out of the loop again.

Inspectors also are concerned about e-mail messages sent out by City Hall warning city employees that a letter had tested positive for anthrax and that no mail should be opened. A later message corrected the false alarm.

Gov. Ben Cayetano and others are asking whether Harris did not overreact to Tuesday's incident by publicly announcing the results of field tests conducted with a machine and test strips the city put into operation last week.

Navy laboratory tests confirmed hours later that the letter, sent from Saudia Arabia to the Group 70 International architectural firm on Bethel Street, contained no trace of anthrax. Health officials stress that the disease has not been detected anywhere in Hawai'i for decades.

"I think we should be very certain before we take steps or say things which would get people excited," Cayetano said. "And I give the mayor credit for the work that he's done, but I thought to come out and say to people that their machines indicate that the readings have been positive was totally unnecessary."

A better approach would be to wait until conclusive tests determined whether the threat was valid, he said.

Harris was on the scene shortly after city emergency personnel responded, as were reporters who had heard of the field test results over radio scanners. The mayor and fire department freely discussed the tests, and soon the City Hall e-mail message was being relayed across O'ahu.

City spokeswoman Carol Costa said officials handled the incident correctly and no changes are necessary to protocol for responding to such events. Harris believes the public has a right to know what's going on when so many people are following news about anthrax, she said.

"When you are closing streets and restricting movement, you need to inform the public," Costa said.

She said city officials remain confident in the city's newly purchased field testing system, which many cities across the country are rushing to order.

Duplicate tests

City officials expect DNA analysis equipment similar to the Navy's setup to arrive in two to three weeks. City Emergency Medical Services Director Salvatore Lanzilotti said the Navy will help train city staff to use the gear.

But state Health Director Bruce Anderson said the state already has such equipment and will be ready to perform those tests soon. A state lab already can perform slower tests that are nearly as conclusive.

"I want to make sure we're not duplicating services," Anderson said. "The city's resources should be complementary to what the state is doing."

Costa also said Harris had not asked that his secretary, Myra Ono, send out the e-mail ordering employees to stop opening mail. The message read: "Per the mayor — everyone in the city is to stop opening mail immediately. There is a positive identification of anthrax in the downtown area."

Costa said Harris had asked Ono only to notify "certain key departments" to take extra precautions because the suspicious letter mailed to Group 70 International contained a resume and he wanted the city's human resources department and others to be vigilant.

Ono was not reprimanded for the e-mail, Costa said, because she acted out of concern for employee and public safety. Future warnings will be relayed by telephone, she said.

Anderson said there was a need to make sure any future public announcements about anthrax field tests make it clear such tests are not conclusive and must be confirmed by lab tests.

"I think everyone has learned a valuable lesson — not to overreact to a field test," Anderson said. "The interpretation that many received, based in part on media coverage, was that there was confirmed anthrax, and that was not the case."

Authorities closed one block of Bethel Street Tuesday and quarantined about 100 workers in the McCandless Building to ensure that anyone exposed to the threat could be located and tested, and to prevent any chance that a contamination would spread.

Similar threats have been handled in that manner. At the U.S. Capitol, about 50 people were quarantined after a contaminated letter was sent to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle D-S.D. earlier this month.

Anderson stressed that police and firefighters handled the incident appropriately.

"The response agencies did everything right," he said. "The problem, of course, was not in the response but in the information generated during that period."

Out of the loop

U.S. Postal Inspector Kathryn Derwey said her agency learned of the scare from media inquiries, and that inspectors want to be notified by police and firefighters of any future reports of suspicious mail.

She said no formal protocol had been established with the city and that communication had been spotty.

"We would prefer that people put us in the loop even before that" and call postal inspectors, rather than police, about suspect mail, she said. Otherwise, police and fire department hazardous materials crews could become exhausted responding to the dozens of false alarms called in every week.

"What happens if resources are used up and people are burned out, and then there's a true anthrax situation?" Derwey said. "Wearing out the first responders and hazmat teams just serves the terrorists."

Costa said police procedure is for officers to notify the FBI of terrorism-related incidents. That agency in turn notifies other federal agencies.

But she said she was told the officer who was to handle the FBI notification was delayed by decontamination after responding to the scene.

The FBI and Postal Service arrived at the scene before the Navy lab produced final test results.

Costa said city officials expect another five field test machines to arrive the first week of November. The city already has received seven machines made by Alexeter Technologies, along with 175 anthrax test strips.

Tetracore, the firm that developed and makes the Bio Threat Alert strips, has run out of the strips and will not have more for six to eight weeks, said company vice president Tom O'Brien.

He said the strips are reliable if used correctly, and that of roughly 5,000 tests conducted nationwide in the past two weeks, he knew of fewer than five false-positive results, which likely were conducted or interpreted incorrectly.

"It's as reliable as any home pregnancy test," said O'Brien, a scientist who helped the Naval Medical Research Institute develop its testing procedures. "I pride myself on the quality of my antibodies, and the strip is a direct result of those antibodies."

Advertiser Staff Writer Kevin Dayton contributed to this report.