City hall anthrax scare was a wakeup call
Even the city personnel who have to assume responsibility for the city’s problem-plagued reaction to the anthrax scare at City Hall admit there were problems from the outset — virtually no one denies this.
But if I am to be honest with myself and the public on this issue, then I must herewith proclaim a mea culpa.
Many things went wrong that night: The quarantine leaked like a sieve; inter-agency communication was lacking; attempts to shut down the building’s ventilation system to prevent the spreading of contaminants failed; people who may have been infected, including myself, were shuttled around from location to location. But the first mistake was mine.
On the night in question, I opened an envelope addressed to me, but with no return address, and immediately became alarmed when I saw a whiff of white powder come out of the envelope. I dumped the contents out onto a desk, and could clearly see the words “anthrax kills” written on a folded piece of paper, which seemed to contain more of the same white powder folded inside.
I, and fellow Citizen reporter Juliet O’Neill, began a frantic and fruitless search for a phone number to City Hall’s security desk. Unable to find one anywhere in the office, I decided to go downstairs to the information desk to tell security in person. And that’s where I made my mistake.
Had I actually inhaled anthrax, or another biological toxin, I would have exposed numerous people, including the security guard I talked to, to a potentially lethal substance. Granted, anthrax is not particularly communicable from person to person, but it was anybody’s guess at that point what the envelope really contained.
I gave a potentially toxic substance the opportunity to spread throughout the expansive City Hall lobby, infecting who knows how many people, who could then have carried the disease out of the building and onto the streets of downtown Ottawa.
Fortunately for me and everyone else in the vicinity, the powder turned out to be a “benign substance.” Truth be told, from the moment I saw the contents of the envelope, I had little doubt that it was a hoax. So when I walked out of my office and into the City Hall lobby, I was more concerned about finishing the article I was writing and getting home in time to watch the U.S. election nail-biter on TV than I was about biological terrorism.
My instinct proved to be right, but it was a risk I should never have taken.
That point was driven home for me earlier this week by Councillor Diane Deans, chairwoman of the city’s emergency and protective services committee, who is pushing for public education about biological and chemical threats in the aftermath of City Hall’s anthrax scare.
People — including myself — need to know what to do when confronted with the spectre of a chemical or biological threat, Ms. Deans said.
“Before you just tear open any envelope, you should take a close look at it,” she said.
“We need to be more mindful of the possibility” of chemical and biological terrorism and “change our habits” accordingly, she added.
“We all need to attune ourselves to the new reality,” Ms. Deans posited, though she admitted that was “a pretty sad statement” on the state of our world.
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Errors in staff reaction could have been deadly if threat had been real, councillor says
City councillors are demanding senior staff explain the flaws that led to a confused response to an anthrax scare at City Hall which, had it been the real thing, some say could have been deadly.
And staff members are scrambling to create procedures to prevent a repeat of what happened Nov. 2, when a Citizen reporter opened a letter and found white powder and a note that read “anthrax kills.”
Emergency crews sealed the building for four hours as a hazardous materials team worked to identify the powder.
The procedure was so poorly executed that people were still able to leave the building more than three hours after emergency personnel were notified.
Councillors inside City Hall were told a “suspicious package” had been found. Unaware that a quarantine order involved a highly toxic biological weapon, at least one councillor felt comfortable leaving.
“The system failed at City Hall,” said Councillor Jan Harder, who was kept inside during the crisis. “If that had been a real chemical … thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands in this city would be dead.”
Ms. Harder said the “hundreds” of people who left the building after the threat opened the door to widespread contamination. She said communication between emergency staff and people quarantined inside was virtually non-existent. It wasn’t until an acquaintance called her that she knew what was happening.
“Communication is key,” Ms. Harder said. “You can’t convince people to stay put if you don’t tell them why. … The mixed messages people were getting were ridiculous.”
Ms. Harder’s comments were echoed by other councillors who found themselves trapped inside City Hall with little understanding of what was happening.
“There’s no such thing as a perfect event,” John Ash, the manager of the emergency measures unit, said last week. “We’re not looking to pinpoint blame; we want to learn from the experience.”
Mr. Ash said the city is now working on protocols to ensure future emergency responders will be able to “quickly transfer information” to the appropriate people to make sure entrances to a contaminated building are “secured.”
Emergency crews were also unable to turn off the building’s ventilation system to stop potential contaminants from spreading.
Mr. Ash said that, due to recent budget cuts, “maintenance staff was not there to turn it off.”
For the emergency crews, the only option was to pull the fire alarm, which automatically shuts down the ventilation, but would have prompted people to try to flee.
Mr. Ash said authorized staff has remote access to the ventilation system, but there were “technical problems” that are now being rectified.
“Things didn’t go as smoothly as we would hope,” Councillor Diane Deans, chairwoman of the emergency and protective services committee, said.
“There were concerns expressed by a number of people as to who was in charge. We need to make this clearer.”
Ms. Deans said City Hall’s emergency public address system proved “completely ineffective.”
On at least one occasion, the automated system broadcast an “all-clear” long before the hazardous materials team confirmed there was no threat.
The problems come to light as the city prepares for an official visit by U.S. President George W. Bush on Nov. 30, and some councillors expressed concern about the city’s ability to react to a threat during the visit.
Ms. Ash said the city has experience with such visits and “we are more than prepared.”
Dr. Robert Cushman, the city’s chief medical officer of health, said hoax anthrax letters are “certainly a common occurrence,” but he warned emergency responders not to let their guard down by assuming a potential threat is fake.
The Ottawa Citizen
Friday, November 19, 2004
