An 88-year-old can teach you a thing or two if you listen.Mamie Gallahar has a row of potted plants sitting on her front porch, green from just the right amount of water, sunshine and tender loving care. She leaned on a window-unit air conditioner last Friday as she posed for a photograph. The thermometer behind her bracketed to the outside wall registered 90-something, too close to the red zone for comfort. Much hotter, and she might have to turn on that window unit.
But you have to be careful when you start talking zones with Mamie. She lives full-time in the now infamous “pink zone” surrounding the chemical weapons stockpile at the Anniston Army Depot.
That makes her one of the nearly 3,000 “special needs” people such as the elderly and disabled living on the front lines of what could on any day be a battle to save lives against a manmade disaster.
¤ ¤ ¤New light on dangerous threats to the chemical weapons stockpile stored at the Anniston Army Depot is adding yet more emphasis to the need for an emergency preparedness plan.
Recent studies yet to be released by the Army are expected to show a heightened concern about lightning, according to military sources.
Army officials worry about lightning because of the sensitive rocketry systems encasing many of the chemical weapons. They are concerned that nearby electrical discharges from a lightning strike could, despite all safety precautions, cause a chemical rocket to ignite within its storage igloo.
While the chances of such an accident remain extremely remote, it exists and therefore poses a danger, Army sources say as they pay more attention to such remote threats after Sept. 11.
Perhaps, say opponents to the Army’s plan to incinerate the weapons. However, many distrust anything the Army says and sees it as rhetoric to support the incinerator, which is expected to begin burning chemical agents in trial burns this fall and continue to burn for several years until all the weapons are destroyed.
Incinerator proponents support the burns as the quickest way to safely destroy the weapons and remove the threat. Opponents feel there are increased chances for an accidental release of deadly chemicals into the air because of the destruction process, and they urge that the incinerator plan be scrapped in favor of alternate destruction methods.
Throw in the mutual concern over the realization by all parties that the storage site could be a target for terrorists, and the plan for an emergency response becomes the most important issue in history facing Calhoun County.
¤ ¤ ¤Listen to Mamie.
“I don’t think I have too many more years to be here,” she said. Then she pointed a thumb toward the direction of the stockpile. “But I don’t want to go like that.”
Mamie doesn’t want to be forgotten, which is exactly what it seems she and every one else has been in the political bickering going on regarding an emergency response plan.
It is inexcusable that an appropriate and efficient emergency preparedness plan wasn’t put in place years ago or since. The danger of a release exists NOW, and it will be there every day until the weapons are gone, no matter what method is used to destroy them.
The county simply must admit that shelter-in-place will have to be a part of its training for survival. There’s little choice for people like Mamie if time won’t allow evacuation, which remains the county’s only plan in place.
The federal agencies must provide money for emergency materials and they must help in providing the necessary training and support.
And don’t think today’s story about the promise of protective hoods is the cure-all answer; many chemical weapons also kill on contact with the skin. All this, along with teaching about what the siren warning for a chemical release sounds like, must become part of a massive educational program that involves local, state and federal teamwork.
Stories today and in the past few weeks suggest breakthroughs on these fronts. It’s darn well about time.
Finally, there appears to be a sprout growing from the long-ago sown seeds of need.
It may be too late to enjoy the shade today, but if they water and nurture this sprout, perhaps soon it will grow roots with each agency and raise a plan that will stand solid and strong against any storm.
Many lives, including Mamie and her row of potted plants, depend on it.
