By Nate Jones
Staff Writer
Police officers, firefighters and hazardous material and public safety vehicles from Scarborough, South Portland, Gorham, Windham and Standish slowly and silently rolled through the streets along the Scarborough and South Portland border June 10 in response to a mock biohazard alarm set off at the United States Post Offices Southern Maine Processing and Distribution Center.
“Once these machines are on, it’s as good as real,” U.S. Postal Inspection Service Inspector Kenneth Walker said, referring to a high tech Biohazard Detection System, a “sniffer” installed in all 283 major mail facilities across the country after anthrax mailings, following the 9/11 terrorists attacks, caused the death of two postal employees. “The alarm went off, and it requires a major response.”
The detection system – designed specifically for the postal service – was first installed in a Baltimore mail processing center in 2002, U.S. Postal Service District Communications Coordinator Tom Rizzo said. The machine, consisting of an air collection hood, a collection cabinet and a networked computer, collects samples of air surrounding the mail as it is processed, then converts the particles in the air into a liquid that is tested for harmful toxins, all without interrupting the normal mail processing.
“Mail processing equipment functions normally with the biohazard detection system in place,” Rizzo said.
Walker said although the system has never detected real hazardous material in the mail system, it’s important for first responders, such as the Scarborough Fire Department, to get used to working with federal agencies such as the postal inspectors in case of a real hazard.
“Everybody knows they have to practice,” he said. “We learn something new every time.”
Rizzo said the Scarborough mail center – built in 2006 to replace the 77-year old building on Forest Avenue in Portland – has processed more than 600 million pieces of mail in the past 11 months.
“It’s a pretty big facility for this area,” Walker said.
Walker said the most important task when responding to the alarm is to keep everything within the building contained to prevent further spread of a potentially hazardous material, including all employees and outgoing mail. Containment can be challenging, as numerous vehicles are constantly coming and going from the facility, he said.
“It’s a gargantuan task when you look at all the things that have to be done,” Rizzo said.
Scarborough Fire Chief Michael Thurlow said the drill “went well.” He said the fire department had been planning and training for the drill for nearly a year and a half.
“There was no smoking gun or glaring lesson learned,” he said. “The drill went pretty much as expected and now we are just going to fine tune SOPs [standard operating procedures] and some organizational stuff to improve communications.  Both the first responders and postal service staffs did an exemplary job.”
Thurlow said the biggest challenge in responding to an alarm is the weather, as the decontamination process happens in tents outside the facility regardless of the season.
“The weather was fine the night of the drill, but it certainly could be our biggest challenge depending on the time of year on the day a real event happens,”
Most of the funding for the drill was provided by a $31,000 training and exercise grant from the Cumberland County Emergency Management Agency in October, Thurlow said. Cumberland County Emergency Management Agency Director Jim Budway said $13,000 of the grant was specifically earmarked for the drill while the rest of the funding went toward smaller training operations.
“It was obviously something the state felt was important,” he said.
While the detection system is so reliable it has never triggered a false alarm, Rizzo and Walker said inspectors respond to “white powder” reported by employees and mail recipients across the country on a daily basis.
“We lost two employees to anthrax,” Rizzo said. “The threat is real, that’s why it’s so important to do drills like this.”
Walker said while Postal Service personnel and mail recipients may mistake cornstarch – which banks use when rolling coins – or other white residues generated during packaging for anthrax, hazmat teams responded as if every call were the real thing.
“There’s no such thing as a false alarm,” he said. “Everything is assumed to be a real biohazard material until proven otherwise.”