Isle fight against
anthrax bacteria grows

Postal inspectors join the effort
to investigate suspicious packages

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By Rod Antone
rantone@starbulletin.com

Honolulu's postal inspectors have entered the anthrax fray this week in an attempt toalleviate the number of calls being taken by police and fire officials.

"They've been doing a great job," said Kathryn Derwey, a Honolulu postal inspector about Honolulu's fire and police departments.

"But now we're here to lighten the load for them, so that they're not responding to things that have no credibility as threats."

Since public concern about anthrax began to surge on Oct. 12, the Honolulu Fire Department has responded to about 350 anthrax-related calls, many of them involving a "suspicious" piece of mail or package.

While exact numbers for the Honolulu Police Department were unavailable, police officials had earlier estimated that anthrax-related calls had tripled detectives' caseloads.

As of Monday evening, however, police and fire officials have been able to pass some emergency calls off to postal inspectors, informing 9-1-1 callers that an inspector will be getting back to them within an hour. Emergency crews will still respond if a letter or package is already opened, something is leaking from the piece of mail, or if a "powdery" substance is visible.

Patience is also a factor.

"If people are antsy or nervous and don't want to wait, of course we'll respond," said HFD spokesman Capt. Kenison Tejada. "We'll also still respond if, after speaking with the postal inspector, the caller still feels uneasy."

Tejada clarified that people should still call 9-1-1 if they have concerns about any type of mail and let emergency officials decide if a call gets referred to postal inspectors.

Derwey said that since 6 p.m. Monday, postal inspectors have been "referred" to seven anthrax-related calls, of which one caller still wanted HFD to respond to the situation.

The other callers, Derwey said, felt satisfied after it was determined that their mail was not carrying anthrax spores.

"We find out the characteristics of the mail, ask the caller to hold it up to a light so they can see if there's powder inside," said Derwey.

"If there's no powder inside, then there's no threat, so we tell them to open it."

"A lot of times it turns out to be fund-raising for nonprofit groups or advertising companies who don't have their return address on the envelope, because they think if people know where the mail is coming from, they won't open it and (will) throw it away.

"Unfortunately it's working against them now."

Derwey said if people don't want to take the chance of opening their mail at all, the postal inspector will call 9-1-1 for them or the post office will pick it up for them.

"If they don't want it, they can return it to the post office and we'll return it to sender or destroy it but we will not open it," she said.

HFD's Hazardous Waste or HazMat officials said it is hard to gauge whether the new process is helping.

As of 9 p.m. yesterday there were about eight anthrax related calls made to 9-1-1 and referred to HFD. That compares with 14 calls on Monday and 32 calls last Thursday, a one-day record.

HFD still responded to five of the eight calls yesterday. Postal inspectors handled the other three plus one call referred by HPD.

"We'll do what we can to help people," said Derwey. "We need controlled response for these things and not be hysterical.

That way police and fire will only be called for those instances where there is a potential for harm, because we want to use our resources efficiently."

Derwey said a similar referral system is still in the works for callers on the neighbor islands. Right now however, postal inspectors are only taking calls on Oahu.

"We were estimating that this had the potential to reduce our calls up to 50 percent," said Capt. Carter Davis of the HazMat One team based in Kuakini.

"We hope so. We hope so."

Honolulu mail center tested for anthrax

The U.S. Postal Service's Honolulu Processing and Distribution Center near Honolulu Airport was among 262 postal facilities across the country tested for anthrax yesterday as part of a precautionary program, officials said.

Results of the test samples are not expected for about two weeks, postal service spokeswoman Felice Broglio said, adding that there is no evidence of anthrax in Hawaii.

Yesterday's tests were simply a precaution and did not disrupt or delay normal mail operations, she said.

Managers briefed employees at the distribution center prior to the testing, postal officials said.