Calls take toll on police,
fire departments

Attacks hit some marriages hard
Where words may fail, music heals in crisis

---

By Leila Fujimori
lfujimori@starbulletin.com

Since reports of anthrax in Florida, New York and Nevada last week, the Honolulu fire and police departments have responded to a deluge of calls regarding suspicious mail and powdery substances, taxing their resources and prompting a demand for change.

"Because we have to respond to every one of those calls and we have to investigate, it's taking our detectives from doing other investigations they also should be doing," said Police Lt. Kathy Ferreira of the Criminal Investigation Division.

Police Chief Lee Donohue said the department has increased the staffing of detectives to conduct their investigations, while Fire Chief Attilio Leonardi said his department is changing its response to calls for unidentified chemical substances to use different apparatus.

Currently, the Fire Department responds with a large, fully equipped HAZMAT truck with a team of five.

After the substance is packaged, the team must then wait for Pacific Environmental Corp. (PENCO), a private contractor for the state Health Department, to arrive to transport the product to a laboratory for testing.

The plan will be announced and employed early this week and should lessen the inconvenience to the public and make the response more efficient, said Capt. Richard Soo, spokesman for the Fire Department.

The department responded with its hazardous-materials unit to 23 calls of unidentified chemical substances or suspicious packages within the past three days -- six on Friday, nine Saturday and nine yesterday as of 8:30 p.m. By comparison, there were 17 HAZMAT incidents from Sept. 11 to Oct. 11, and nine last year for the same period.

There were at least nine hazardous-materials calls yesterday. As of last night, none of the cases reported over the past week had tested positive for anthrax.

Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris assured Oahu residents that the city is well equipped with personnel and equipment to respond to any biological or chemical terrorism. He urged them to remain calm.

Officials urged residents not to panic when dealing with an unfamiliar substance or odor.

Paul Takamiya, Oahu Civil Defense acting administrator, advised that if residents smell a strange odor, they should check whether upwind neighbors are spraying something such as pesticides. He also suggested that if you discover a suspicious package, do not move it. Leave it where you found it, close windows and doors of the room, and get or keep other people out of the room. Wash your hands thoroughly with ordinary soap, and call 911 from another room, he said.

Takamiya noted that in an incident at 1 Archer Lane on Saturday, a woman reportedly brought a suspicious package up and down in an elevator. The package turned out to be harmless, but had it contained a biological or chemical agent, moving it around the building was the worst thing that could have been done.

Police are trained to secure an area with a suspicious substance, and firefighters' hazardous-materials crews are able to test for certain chemicals and take samples if further testing is needed.

If you have doubts, let the professionals assess the risk, Takamiya said.

"We have to use common sense," Donohue said. "Naturally we ask they err on the side of safety. We're on heightened awareness but everyone has to remain calm."

Police ask that any suspicious activity be reported to the HPD terrorist hot line at 225-5473, or CALL-HPD.