Posted on: Friday, March 18, 2005
Hazmat crews remove mystery chemicals
By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer
Teams of experts in protective suits converged on a quiet neighborhood on Wilhelmina Rise yesterday morning with fire engines, ambulances and trucks filled with sophisticated equipment capable of sniffing the air for the faintest scent of deadly chemicals.
Photo courtesy of Kelly McArthur Members of the 93rd Civil Support Team set up equipment before the removal of the unknown chemical yesterday on Wilhelmina Rise. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser Experts thought they had finished the most dangerous part of the job — moving the vials — when they found part of a mortar shell stored beneath a flight of stairs. But police bomb technicians determined it was a fuse without a bursting charge, in a casing stamped "inert."
It capped a long day of cleanup at 1611-A Pa'ula Drive, home to a chemical engineer, a colonel in the Army reserves, who died in 2003.
None of the vials was broken and four were empty, said Honolulu Fire Department Capt. Kenison Tejada. They were taken inside a triple-sealed container system to Wheeler Army Airfield under police escort.
"There did not appear to be any leakage," Tejada said. "They looked good."
A team from the Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland was expected to examine the vials, possibly today.
The vials belonged to the late Ernest "Tommy" Thomas, said his former caretaker Kelly McArthur, who now lives in the house. McArthur found the vials a year ago in a box under the house. She had been cleaning the house since the death last November of Thomas' wife, Harriet Jean "Rusty" Thomas.
Although she said she handled the box 10 times over the course of a year, she never became ill, McArthur said yesterday. She even thought she might glue the 4-inch-long sealed vials to a piece of wood and frame it.
But the last time she handled it, six weeks ago, it smelled funny and the box felt like dry ice.
After she took one of the vials to the Department of Health on Monday, officials evacuated her home and two others. They also cordoned off the Thomas home and covered the box of vials with an upside down garbage can.
The vials still need to be tested to determine what is in them, but they were suspicious enough to prompt scores of precautions yesterday.
More than 50 police officers, firefighters, Hawai'i National Guard members who specialize in weapons of mass destruction, city paramedics and state Department of Health environmental emergency response personnel swarmed about the home.
They closed a length of Pa'ula Drive, told neighbors within a quarter-mile radius to stay indoors or leave, parked four ambulances nearby and built a decontamination pool in a neighbor's driveway.
Members of the Hawai'i National Guard's 93rd Civil Support Team handled the vials.
McArthur was praised yesterday by O'ahu Civil Defense.
"McArthur did the right thing," said spokesman John Cummings. "She reported it. Most folks would have pitched it into the garbage can. Call 911 if you have a suspicious material."
Advertiser staff writer Rod Ohira contributed to this report. Reach Mike Gordon at 525-8012 or mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com.
The hazardous materials crews were there to remove 78 glass vials thought to be from a military test kit for mustard gas. The vials were reported to authorities on Monday; they were first found in the home about a year ago by a caretaker to the couple who lived there.
Seventy-eight vials of an unknown chemical were found at a house on Wilhelmina Rise. Army specialists will handle testing of the vials.
Fire engines and pickup trucks specially designed to carry hazardous material were among the vehicles lining Pa'ula Drive yesterday.
"My gut is telling me it's all OK," McArthur said outside the house yesterday before the hazardous materials experts arrived. "I still don't think (Thomas) would put something dangerous under his house."
They were placed, one by one, into a foam container, then put into a plastic bag. The bag was put in a 55-gallon drum and surrounded with vermiculite, which is similar to kitty litter. That drum was then sealed and placed inside an 85-gallon drum for the journey to Wahiawa.
Kelly McArthur
