Anthrax drill is a first for the East Coast area

Simulated bioterrorism attack to focus

on the post office

BY CHRISTINE GRIMALDI

Staff Writer

Middlesex County plans to test its bioterrorism response procedures today with an anthrax drill scheduled at an Edison U.S. Postal Service facility.

The simulated attack will be conducted at the Kilmer Processing and Distribution Center, 20 Kilmer Road. It is slated to begin at 9:45 a.m.

It will be followed by an 11 a.m. medication distribution drill at JFK Medical Center, 65 James St.

Under scrutiny are both the postal service's Biohazard Detection System (BDS) equipment and the Middlesex County Public Health Department BDS Plan, which department Director David A. Papi said incorporates local, county, state and federal agencies.

Participating Edison agencies include the fire, health and police departments, as well as the Office of Emergency Management.

If such a biohazard were to occur, Papi said that postal employees and the public would need to take medication.

"Some disruption of the mail process would occur," he said.

There have been no confirmed incidents of anthrax since those of 2001, he said.

"The planning of this drill is not related to any known threats or other intelligence information," he said.

George Flood, postal service spokesman for northern and central New Jersey, said that morning shift employees would report to Kilmer as usual.

Evacuation would begin after the facility's BDS alarm is sounded manually. It would automatically go off in the event of an actual attack.

The completely automated equipment works by collecting air samples of incoming mail and converting these particles to a liquid state, according to a BDS fact sheet.

Flood said that the sample's DNA is then checked by the BDS computer database.

"If it matches the DNA of anthrax, then boom, it sets off the alarm," Flood said.

After employees are evacuated, specially trained officials from the Postal Inspection Service - a federal law enforcement agency - will enter with their Hazmat suits on to recover the canisters, Flood said.

In the event of an actual biological threat, the collected canisters would be sent to state laboratories for analysis and the postal building closed until lab results were reported, Flood said.

Postal inspectors will simulate downloading information from the office's mail sorting equipment, which Flood said can be used to trace the route of the infected mail.

"We certainly hope it's a day that never arrives, but we are prepared nonetheless," he said.

Various institutions across the state regularly hold emergency response drills, Papi said.

"Drills and exercises are conducted to strengthen existing preparedness plans and create unity between response partners," he said.

But the Middlesex simulation is the first of its scale to be hosted on the East Coast and the second nationwide. Papi said the intergovernmental collaboration includes about 500 participants, of which about 200 "represent response agency personnel."

A prior large-scale drill was conducted Thursday at the Santa Clarita Postal Distribution Center,Valencia, California.