EMERGENCY RESPONSE TO CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL AGENTS - CHAPTER 1 ppsx

However, with the increase of terrorism in the United States, it isincreasingly important that emergency response teams are trained to handle incidentsinvolving biological, chemical, and

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Emergency response to chemical and biological agents / John R Cashman.

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Emergency responders are trained primarily to respond to fires or hazardous rials accidents However, with the increase of terrorism in the United States, it isincreasingly important that emergency response teams are trained to handle incidentsinvolving biological, chemical, and nuclear agents Utilizing recent case studies andinterviews, this book presents a framework for emergency response to terrorist andcriminal acts It provides the emergency responder with data on the safe handlingand disposal of biological and chemical agents, information on hazardous materialsteams’ operations, and numerous resources

mate-A NEW Bmate-ALLGmate-AME FOR Hmate-AZmate-ARDOUS Mmate-ATERImate-ALS

TEAMS

Chief John Eversole is the hazardous materials coordinator for the Chicago, IL FireDepartment He has been a member of the department for 30 years and worked onsome of the busiest engines, trucks, hook-and-ladders, and squad companies in thewestern part of the city Eversole is a member of the National Fire ProtectionAssociation standard committee that produced national hazardous materials NFPA-

471, NFPA-472, and NFPA-473 He is chairman of the International Association ofFire Chiefs’ hazardous materials committee

A leader on the street, and in the committee rooms where the nitty-gritty ofhazardous materials response in the United States is thrashed out, Chief John Ever-sole is approachable to all persons and eloquent in expressing his thoughts Hiscommand presence on an incident scene comes from extensive experience leadingHaz Mat teams at major incidents

We asked Chief Eversole for his opinions about response to chemical, biological,and nuclear materials as they relate to domestic terrorism in the United States “Ibelieve we have to look at the problem from several levels The biggest problem

we face in the fire service today is not all the ‘special’ problems such as terrorism.The biggest problem we face today is keeping the Haz Mat program operational,keeping our fire departments moving along and producing It doesn’t matter howmany times we go out the door; people expect us to be right every time Nobodysays, ‘Well, that’s okay; I know you messed up.’ That’s not acceptable to people

We have a number of problems Obviously, the financial crunch continues Theconstraints get tighter and tighter

“The requirements that we have to fulfill with the federal government, nationalstandards, and everything else become more and more burdensome Our fire serviceemergency responders have to become more technically correct They have to knowmore, be able to do more Still, we are expected to do this with fewer people andfewer dollars That is, the biggest challenge we face is just the ability to answer the

call: every time the bell rings, we have to remain able to get out the door and still

be able to do the job properly

“I believe one of our new challenges is the question of how we are going tohandle terrorism on a local basis There is much question, much debate, and muchunknown about possible methods There are many opinions from people who arenot well informed What we need to do, and what the Hazardous Materials Com-mittee of the International Association of Fire Chiefs is trying desperately to do, is

to get a really good handle on how we are going to handle terrorism as an emergencyresponder If we were to look at all terrorist incidents, it is obvious that the firstresponder is the critical factor in establishing control over the incident and therebyminimizing the disaster If the first responders do not do a good job, the incidentcould become uncontrollable We have to make sure we act appropriately in a safemanner and do not overreact

“We can examine the recent anthrax hoax incident in Washington, D.C Here isthe seat of the federal government Here’s the place where every special ‘whatever-they-are’ and every whiz in the nation practices If you look at the news clips, youcould see everybody who was actually doing the work: the police were basicallytrying to control the area, and the firefighters were handling the problem ‘Waseverything that was done in Washington right or wrong?’ I don’t think that is thequestion What the incident shows us is that the local people are going to handle aterrorist incident In Washington, I didn’t see any soldiers, any Marines, or anyspecial government agencies there I saw police and fire departments protecting theircommunities, and I think we have to understand that’s the way it’s going to be

“In this incident, a package marked ‘anthrax,’ it is my understanding that thename was actually misspelled, was delivered to a building Of course, everyonebecame very concerned Obviously, a terrorist act is intended to scare people Well,anthrax did a pretty good job of scaring people, and the Washington, D.C firedepartment was called as was the police department What they did, had to be done.They took what they thought were basic, logical steps They controlled the area,they backed away, they brought in people who had special protective clothing anddecontamination equipment, and they handled the incident The fire service stoodproud in a fire department that is significantly stressed, yet they produced If theydid not produce, who would have been there to effectively and in a reasonable timeframe protect their city? No one would be there The point I am making again isthat we have to be able to get out and do our everyday business every day We’llhandle all these special problems that come along, such as terrorist acts, as theycome, but our operations have to be done in a reasonably intelligent manner

“There are people going across the country making suggestions that are justunreasonable We have to look at the whole picture and say what we can reasonablyand intelligently do to respond to terrorist acts Other than throwing millions ofdollars at a program as our federal government often does, the problem does nothave an answer It’s how the money is spent, how it is intelligently used that matters

We need to put money and effort into what will really solve problems Oftentimes,

I question the ability to deliver an effective program; the bottom line is that protection

of communities has to be up to the local emergency responders Even a small townhas to be adequately prepared to handle their known hazards just like a big city

does How they are going to do that is critical It does not matter if it’s a big town

or a little town; we must provide reasonable protection in our communities When

we cannot supply reasonable protection in our communities, there will be anarchy

“The reality of the situation is that we cannot wait for somebody to come fromsome long distance to get into our town, even if assistance can get there in a fewhours … which is unlikely in this type of operation They will come in simply to

‘remediate,’ which is kind of a fancy term for ‘pick up the pieces.’ They are notgoing to be the people who will make the life or death decisions that have to bemade It will be the local people who will make these decisions; it should be theresponsibility of the federal and state governments to help them prepare to do that

If the local people are sitting in their communities thinking the federal government

is going to totally bail them out of a terrorist Haz Mat situation, they are mistaken

I don’t believe this is going to happen

“In large metropolitan areas, we do have significant resources but we still needhelp We are going to need some basic help that the federal government has not yetseen themselves ready to give There are a lot of fancy words used, but the bottomline is that if we are going to deal with a terrorism situation, or a reported terrorismsituation, we not only have to have trained people but we need to have basicspecialized equipment that will allow us to determine if this incident is a terroristincident or not

“We’ve told firefighters for a long time that you can’t stand there and sniff it

It takes some specialized equipment to determine the presence of a chemical warfareagent release These instruments have to be made available to the emergency localresponders We again have to decide who is going to get them, what they are going

to get, how they are going to be trained to use such equipment, what is practicaland not practical We’ve got to take these actions

“The Hazardous Materials Committee within the International Association ofFire Chiefs met yesterday to make sure that our committee is actively pursuingdecisions as to what should be done, how should we do it, who should do it, what

we need to deal with the situation, and what kind of equipment is needed We aregoing to have to make these recommendations like we’ve done many times in thepast People are aware we have not always taken popular stands, but the fire chiefs’committee studies varied issues and questions There are a number of committeemembers who are very knowledgeable, not only in the fire service but in specialtyareas We have added a member to the committee who is perhaps one of the mostknowledgeable persons in the fire service with regard to terrorism We will makeour recommendations to the board of directors of the International Association ofFire Chiefs They will then take these measures and act on them, and hopefullyagree with us The Association will say this is what we think the management ofthe fire service feels is what we should be doing, how we should protect our peopleand our communities, and how we are going to react to terrorism

“We are going to be worried and concerned about terrorist acts, but every day

I have to be prepared respond to an anhydrous ammonia leak, a chlorine leak, oranother type of spill If we go back to the first part of our interview, we have stillgot to put capable teams on the street every day That’s going to be my number onepriority for the next six months while I am chairman of the I.A.F.C Hazardous

Materials Committee Until the day I leave this job, when the bell rings, I will roll

up the big door and put hazardous materials response teams on the street who willprotect our communities That’s the biggest thing we have to worry about We willdeal with terrorism as we have dealt with communicable disease and everything else

we have had to deal with We will deal with terrorism just as another part of what

we are already doing

“Like everything else we do in the fire service, if we go to a house fire we need

to bring engine companies, hose, water, ladders, and all associated tools If we aregoing to a radiological incident, then we should know what the product is, how itreacts, how we control it, and the method required to handle the problem It’s justthat simple Let’s not complicate this; don’t let people play the part of the bogeymanand scare people You cannot allow this to happen This is an unbelievably greatcountry and an advanced technological world we live in The fire service has tomaintain enough intelligence that they know they can do certain things Like thepoker player in the old Kenny Rogers song, firefighters have to know when to standand when to fold Well, we do that in fires We say, ‘Time to back out of this buildingthat is not safe,’ and we get out We have to know what we can do with terroristweapons of mass destruction, when to fold and when to hold There is instrumen-tation and methodology that’s readily available here so that we can establish mean-ingful operating procedures.”

BACKGROUND

A hazardous materials response team (HMRT) is an organized group of employeeswho are designated by the employer and who are expected to control actual orpotential situations in which close approach to leaking or spilled hazardous sub-stances may be required A Haz Mat team may be a separate component of a firebrigade or a fire department While these teams are mainly concerned with handlinghazardous materials accidents, more and more they are faced with intentional crim-inal and terrorists acts involving hazardous agents

There is a lot of confusion about what terrorism is and what it is not The FederalBureau of Investigation defines terrorism as, “the unlawful use of force or violenceagainst persons or property to intimidate or coerce a Government, the civilianpopulation, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.Domestic terrorism involves groups of individuals who are based and operate entirelywithin the United States and Puerto Rico without foreign direction and whose actsare directed at the elements of the U.S Government or population Internationalterrorism is the unlawful use of force or violence committed by a group or individualwho has some connection to a foreign power or whose activities transcend nationalboundaries, against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, thecivilian population, or any subject thereof, in furtherance of political or socialobjectives.”

Contact: Chief John Eversole, Hazardous Materials Coordinator, City of Chicago Fire Department, 558 West DeKoven Street, Chicago, IL 60607; 312-747-6582

According to the U.S Department of Defense, terrorism is “the calculated use

of violence or the threat of violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or tointimidate governments of societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political,religious, or ideological.”

Let’s deal with some recent incidents that were not terrorist acts A trailer truckcarrying unirradiated nuclear fuel through downtown Springfield, MA was hit by adrunken driver going the wrong way on Interstate 91 The truck crashed and burned

on an elevated section of highway in front of two major hotels at 3:18 a.m Thelocal fire department could not receive valid information from federal agencies, theGeneral Electric Company who made and shipped the nuclear material, or theVermont Yankee nuclear power facility where the cargo was headed until after thetruck and sensitive cargo had been burned by flames estimated at 1200 degrees

On April 2, 1997, Air Force Captain Craig D Button flew his bomb-laden

A-10 Thunderbolt jet, an aircraft costing $9 million, away from two other A-A-10s during

a training mission at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, AZ and headed forColorado Button’s disappearance sparked rumors of varied conspiracy theoriescoming as it did shortly before the anniversary of both the Waco, TX BranchDavidian killings and the killings at the Federal building in Oklahoma City, OK onApril 19, 1995

On Thursday, April 24, 1997, it became apparent that the F.B.I and the Pentagonwere looking for a tractor trailer carrying four training missiles, each valued at

$150,000, from a Boeing plant in Duluth, GA to Cannon Air Force Base in Clovis,

NM The truck had been expected to arrive in New Mexico the previous Monday,and carried a satellite-monitored tracking beacon supplied by Defense TrackingSystem of Norfolk, VA The truck vanished from computer screens on April 24,

1997 When a vehicle carrying munitions, weapons, or other sensitive equipmenthas disappeared for four hours, trackers call state police for assistance

The F.B.I eventually put out a detention alert on Ronald D Coy, 42, of dletown, OH Coy was believed to be driving a black 1991 Kenworth with mauveand green pinstripes and the name, “Miss Honey Jean” on the bug shield On April

Mid-26, 1997, Coy was found at the Flying J Truck Stop in Orange near the Louisianastate line, while the missiles were found 300 miles away at a fenced-in lumber yard

at Ranger, TX Reportedly, officials were expecting Coy to pull into that particulartruck stop There was an undercover official there who saw Coy pull in, watchedthe truck for about three minutes, and then gave a signal to about a dozen policeofficers from a number of different agencies who rushed in and surrounded the truckand arrested the driver When taken into custody by the F.B.I., Coy was apparentlyalone, unarmed, and put up no resistance Although he could face charges of theft

of an interstate shipment and theft of government property, Coy’s intentions werenot immediately known He was actually arrested on a charge of “wire fraud.”Another truck with a satellite tracking system was lost in Texas on the sameday government agencies were searching for Coy Carrying machine guns andmortars to the U.S Marine Corps base at Camp Pendleton on the California coast,the truck was no longer responding to satellite tracking The trucking companyimmediately canceled the driver’s fuel credit card When refused credit at a truck

stop near El Paso, TX, the driver called the trucking company The truck’s tracingbeacon had failed, and the driver did not know he was being sought

No terrorist activity was involved in any of these incidents, but rather just of-the-mill, everyday problems in handling and security relative to transportation ofhazardous materials It is going to get worse

run-High-level radioactive waste from Canada and other foreign countries is on theroads and rails of the United States and will undergo a massive increase in the nearfuture The U.S Department of Energy (U.S DOE) seeks to stem proliferationaround the world of the sort of highly enriched uranium that can be used to makenuclear weapons

U.S DOE documents indicate more than 20 tons of such nuclear waste are to

be transferred from 42 foreign countries ranging from Bangladesh to Romania toBrazil Uranium containing more than 20% of the isotope uranium-235 is considered

to be highly enriched The more highly enriched the uranium, the more easily it can

be used in weapons Draft rules relative to this transportation of highly hazardousmaterials forbid notifying the general public, and state: “Motor Carrier SafetyCoordinator shall forward notification of shipment to appropriate officials on a ‘need

to know’ basis only Otherwise information will be confidential.”

Most of the foreign waste will come by ship to naval weapons stations inCharleston, SC and Concord, CA and will be shipped from these ports to SavannahRiver, SC and a similar facility in Idaho About 15% of the total waste will comefrom Canada and will be shipped by road and rail through the United States Shippinghigh-level radioactive waste around the United States has been called a “mobileChernobyl bill” by some people

Regarding another type of radioactive waste, the U.S Senate passed a bill onApril 16, 1997 that would allow shipments of nuclear waste from domestic com-mercial reactors to a “temporary” storage site in Nevada At the time of this writing,such commercial sites have to store their radioactive waste “temporarily” on site ateach local facility The commercial facilities dearly want to get rid of what theynow have to store since there is no permanent storage facility for high-level nuclearwaste President Clinton promised to veto the senate bill saying the temporary site

in Nevada would relieve pressure to find a permanent waste site

Hazardous materials response teams deal routinely with chemical and tive or nuclear threats, and some teams have handled biological hazards Terrorists,however, tend to look at such materials as a land of opportunity for their respectivecauses

radioac-Nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) materials are more readily availablethan ever before, and the total threat is growing day-by-day Innocent people,including women and children, are major targets of terrorists because in threateningthese, terrorists gain the most publicity for their cause An infinite pool of potentialvictims is created when terrorists do not recognize the innocence of certain groups.Anyone, including you, can be a victim The more common you are, the better itplays with the media, and the more publicity created Terrorists demand publicity,and their particular targets are selected with an eye toward violence that will producethe most notoriety

The world is changing to a point where horrendous violence has become possible

by any person You no longer need an army, a state, or a country behind you Youcan do it alone Rapid changes in technology have already stimulated broad scaleterrorism in other countries The question is, “Will the United States becomeengulfed by terrorists?”

In the past, most terrorist attacks were politically motivated Now they can bereligious, cult, ethnic, nationalistic or right-wing such as Neo-Nazi or anti-Semitic;

or issue-specific movements like animals rights, anti-abortion, and ism Terrorist acts are cheap, can gain a lot of attention, and can be low-risk to theperpetrator In both time and resources, an expenditure total can be small With NBCmaterials, a weapon of mass destruction can be made, delivered, and set-off simply.The explosion that rent the federal building in Oklahoma City was not dynamite, aplastic explosive, nor any sophisticated weapon; it was fertilizer (ammonium nitrate)mixed with fuel oil Such a product is available to anyone One of the most horren-dous Haz Mat incidents that ever occurred in the United States was a pier explosion

environmental-of a cargo ship filled with ammonium nitrate that killed 561 Americans and injuredthousands in Texas City, TX on April 16, 1947

The lead-time required to mount a terrorist attack can be very short, the risk iscurrently minimal in the United States, and the potential for success is great

“Loners,” like the one(s) who blasted the Oklahoma City federal building, areextremely difficult to identify before an attack Security procedures are all-important

to terrorists, so gaining information on them can be extremely difficult

For foreign terrorists, the United States is thought of as the greatest power inthe world, and we are no longer immune to terrorist acts All the world’s problemsare laid at the feet of the United States, while at the same time the United States

is blamed for not solving the world’s problems Our country could become themain target of international terrorism

Anyone, legally or illegally, can enter the United States It is a completely opencountry, and terrorists would be able to work safely here By some accounts,immigration is out of control In May, 1996, Border Patrol agents in the Swanton,

VT sector covering 261 miles of the quiet U.S./Canadian border apprehended 123deportable aliens from Canada, Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Cuba, DominicanRepublic, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, Philippines, South Korea, Lebanon,Sri Lanka, Togo, Spain, Romania, Somalia, Liberia, Jordan, Algeria, Sudan, Israel,Egypt, France, Turkey, Armenia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, and Afghanistan

Recently in the United States, terrorism has been blamed for attacks on theWorld Trade center in New York City in 1993 where seven died and fourteen wereinjured In 1995, a U.S court convicted 21 people for involvement in terrorist-relatedactivities, including Egyptian Shaykh Omar Abdel Rahman and nine followers foundguilty of seditious conspiracy charges in plotting to bomb major New York Citylandmarks and assassinate prominent politicians Other incidents included the U.S.Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., Mobil Oil headquarters in New York City, aderailment of Amtrak’s Sunset Limited near Hyder, AZ on October 9, 1995, and theammonium nitrate/fuel oil explosion at the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building inOklahoma City on April 19, 1995 which killed 168 American citizens and injured

hundreds more In 1995, a member of the El Rukns street gang in Chicago wascharged with over 40 counts of conspiracy to conduct terrorist acts in the UnitedStates on behalf of a foreign country (Libya) In May of 1995, an American citizenobtained three vials of bubonic plague from a firm in Maryland, but it was unclearwhy he ordered the bacteria

In July of 1995, a member of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) pled guilty toarson at the Mink Research Facility at Michigan State University In December of

1995, an Internal Revenue Service employee found a 30-gallon plastic drum loadedwith 100 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and fuel oil in a parking lot behindthe IRS building Ramzi Ahmed Yowef went on trial May 13, 1996 for his allegedinvolvement in the World Trade Center bombing Musa Abu Marzook of the HAMASgroup was arrested at Kennedy International Airport while attempting to enter theUnited States

Bombing is the most popular way of carrying out terrorists activities in theUnited States Although not all were terrorist acts, during the period of 1990 to

1995, there were 12,512 total bombings and 5108 attempted bombings in the UnitedStates which killed 355 persons and injured 3176

Most of the poison agent victims of World War I are now gone, but we couldhave a whole new generation of victims with us once again It is important to realizehow the victims would die All eight of the following chemical agents — two nerve,two blood, two blister, and two choking agents — are all available to the U.S.military, to 26 other governments according to the F.B.I., and increasingly to terroristorganizations The C.I.A states there are at least ten countries that are believed to

be conducting research on biological weapons

A blister gas known as lewisite smells like geraniums to the victim The medianlethal dosage expressed as mg-min/m3 is 1200 to 1500 by inhalation, or 100,000 byskin exposure The action of lewisite is very rapid, and the best known decontam-ination method used by emergency responders to an incident would be to scrubvictims down with calcium hypochlorite

The blood agent hydrogen cyanide, known as AC to the military and HCN tocommercial users, can be a colorless gas or liquid and smells like bitter almonds.Hydrogen cyanide is the only chemical in the United States which is required to becarried in a “candystriper,” a specially colored railroad tank car that might hopefullywarn away emergency responders who might be called to a railroad wreck It has

a median lethal dosage of 100 for resting persons, and its action as a chemical agent

is extremely rapid Decontamination would be by application and scrubbing withsodium hydroxide

The nerve agent known as sarin, used by the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo tokill 12 people and injure 5500 in the Tokyo subway, has a rapid effect on victimsand a median lethal dosage that varies widely Another nerve agent that has aclassified chemical formula and is known as VX has a median lethal dose of 100and is also considered to have a rapid effect on victims For the first, sodiumhydroxide can be used for decon, while for the second, calcium hypochlorite could

be used

Phosgene, a choking agent that is common in commercial usage and has amedian lethal dosage of 3200, can smell like newly mown hay or green corn, and

is much slower in the rate of action, requiring up to three hours in some cases.Another choking gas, diphosgene, with the same median lethal dosage has the samesmell and the same rate of action The decon method used for either phosgene ordiphosgene is simple aeration.

The blood agent, cyanogen chloride, smells like bitter almonds but less so thanthe other blood agent, hydrogen cyanide, yet it may have the fastest rate of action.The blister agent, distilled mustard or “HD,” a colorless to pale liquid with a medianlethal dosage of 15,000 by inhalation and 10,000 by skin exposure, may have theslowest rate of action which can be delayed for hours or days

In addition to chemical materials like the above poison agents, terrorists alsohave access to biological materials such as anthrax, typhus, and cholera Anthrax is

an infectious, usually fatal disease of warm-blooded animals caused by Bacillus anthracis and transmission to man The word itself comes from the Latin wordwhich means “malignant boil,” or the Greek word for “carbuncle” for a conditioncharacterized by malignant ulcers on victims

The name typhus is applied to various forms of infectious disease caused bymicroorganisms which in peace time can be flea-borne, louse-borne, or mite-borne.Symptoms include severe headache, sustained high fever, depression, delirium andred rashes

Cholera is an acute, often fatal, infectious disease caused by the microorganism

Vibrio comma. Symptoms are watery diarrhea, vomiting, cramps, suppression ofurine, and collapse

Ricin, which is made from castor beans, is one of the most toxic biologicalagents Ricin first came to the attention of the public in 1978 when it was used toassassinate Georgi Markov who was stabbed with the point of an umbrella whilewaiting at a bus stop in London On October 25, 1995, four Minnesota men wereconvicted under the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 for manufac-turing and intending to use ricin to kill a Deputy U.S Marshal and a Sheriff Recently, the federal government has been quietly preparing for domestic ter-rorist attacks within the United States The Federal Bureau of Investigation which

is in charge of antiterrorist activities within U.S borders operates a computerdatabase containing information on 3000 suspected terrorist groups and 200,000individuals S.735, the “Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996,”was passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton on April 24, 1996 TheFederal Emergency Management Agency has issued an annex to its terrorist plan.The National Fire Protection Association has added a terrorist tentative interimamendment to its Standard 472, “Standards for Professional Competence ofResponders to Hazardous Materials Incidents” which is used by both fire depart-ments and industry The U.S Department of Defense has a newly created “DomesticPreparedness for Chemical and Biological Terrorism” unit stationed at the AberdeenProving Grounds in Maryland This department will visit 120 cities to train localresponders how to react to terrorist acts; that is, the U.S military will be trainingcivilians in peace time

In addition, military units can now respond in military operations within theUnited States during peace time Ten years ago, the Reagan Administration secured

a loosening of the laws barring the use of military forces in domestic law enforcement